Lateral Earth Pressure at Rest and Shear Modulus Measurements on Hanford Sludge Simulants

This report describes the equipment, techniques, and results of lateral earth pressure at rest and shear modulus measurements on kaolin clay as well as two chemical sludge simulants. The testing was performed in support of the problem of hydrogen gas retention and release encountered in the double- shell tanks (DSTs) at the Hanford Site near Richland, Washington. Wastes from single-shell tanks (SSTs) are being transferred to double-shell tanks (DSTs) for safety reasons (some SSTs are leaking or are in danger of leaking), but the available DST space is limited

Hanford Tank Farms Waste Certification Flow Loop Phase IV: PulseEcho Sensor Evaluation

Hanford Tank Farms Waste Certification Flow Loop Phase IV: PulseEcho Sensor Evaluatio

Large-Scale Spray Releases: Additional Aerosol Test Results

One of the events postulated in the hazard analysis for the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) and other U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear facilities is a breach in process piping that produces aerosols with droplet sizes in the respirable range. The current approach for predicting the size and concentration of aerosols produced in a spray leak event involves extrapolating from correlations reported in the literature. These correlations are based on results obtained from small engineered spray nozzles using pure liquids that behave as a Newtonian fluid. The narrow ranges of physical properties on which the correlations are based do not cover the wide range of slurries and viscous materials that will be processed in the WTP and in processing facilities across the DOE complex. To expand the data set upon which the WTP accident and safety analyses were based, an aerosol spray leak testing program was conducted by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). PNNL’s test program addressed two key technical areas to improve the WTP methodology (Larson and Allen 2010). The first technical area was to quantify the role of slurry particles in small breaches where slurry particles may plug the hole and prevent high-pressure sprays. The results from an effort to address this first technical area can be found in Mahoney et al. (2012a). The second technical area was to determine aerosol droplet size distribution and total droplet volume from prototypic breaches and fluids, including sprays from larger breaches and sprays of slurries for which literature data are mostly absent. To address the second technical area, the testing program collected aerosol generation data at two scales, commonly referred to as small-scale and large-scale testing. The small-scale testing and resultant data are described in Mahoney et al. (2012b), and the large-scale testing and resultant data are presented in Schonewill et al. (2012). In tests at both scales, simulants were used to mimic the relevant physical properties projected for actual WTP process streams

The Role of Cohesive Particle Interactions on Solids Uniformity and Mobilization During Jet Mixing: Testing Recommendations

Radioactive waste that is currently stored in large underground tanks at the Hanford Site will be staged in selected double-shell tanks (DSTs) and then transferred to the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP). Before being transferred, the waste will be mixed, sampled, and characterized to determine if the waste composition and meets the waste feed specifications. Washington River Protection Solutions is conducting a Tank Mixing and Sampling Demonstration Program to determine the mixing effectiveness of the current baseline mixing system that uses two jet mixer pumps and the adequacy of the planned sampling method. The overall purpose of the demonstration program is to mitigate the technical risk associated with the mixing and sampling systems meeting the feed certification requirements for transferring waste to the WTP.The purpose of this report is to analyze existing data and evaluate whether scaled mixing tests with cohesive simulants are needed to meet the overall objectives of the small-scale mixing demonstration program. This evaluation will focus on estimating the role of cohesive particle interactions on various physical phenomena that occur in parts of the mixing process. A specific focus of the evaluation will be on the uniformity of suspended solids in the mixed region. Based on the evaluation presented in this report and the absence of definitive studies, the recommendation is to conduct scaled mixing tests with cohesive particles and augment the initial testing with non-cohesive particles. In addition, planning for the quantitative tests would benefit from having test results from some scoping experiments that would provide results on the general behavior when cohesive inter-particle forces are important

The Disruption of Vessel-Spanning Bubbles with Sloped Fins in Flat-Bottom and 2:1 Elliptical-Bottom Vessels

Radioactive sludge was generated in the K-East Basin and K-West Basin fuel storage pools at the Hanford Site while irradiated uranium metal fuel elements from the N Reactor were being stored and packaged. The fuel has been removed from the K Basins, and currently, the sludge resides in the KW Basin in large underwater Engineered Containers. The first phase to the Sludge Treatment Project being led by CH2MHILL Plateau Remediation Company (CHPRC) is to retrieve and load the sludge into sludge transport and storage containers (STSCs) and transport the sludge to T Plant for interim storage. The STSCs will be stored inside T Plant cells that are equipped with secondary containment and leak-detection systems. The sludge is composed of a variety of particulate materials and water, including a fraction of reactive uranium metal particles that are a source of hydrogen gas. If a situation occurs where the reactive uranium metal particles settle out at the bottom of a container, previous studies have shown that a vessel-spanning gas layer above the uranium metal particles can develop and can push the overlying layer of sludge upward. The major concern, in addition to the general concern associated with the retention and release of a flammable gas such as hydrogen, is that if a vessel-spanning bubble (VSB) forms in an STSC, it may drive the overlying sludge material to the vents at the top of the container. Then it may be released from the container into the cell’s secondary containment system at T Plant. A previous study demonstrated that sloped walls on vessels, both cylindrical coned-shaped vessels and rectangular vessels with rounded ends, provided an effective approach for disrupting a VSB by creating a release path for gas as a VSB began to rise. Based on the success of sloped-wall vessels, a similar concept is investigated here where a sloped fin is placed inside the vessel to create a release path for gas. A key potential advantage of using a sloped fin compared to a vessel with a sloped wall is that a small fin decreases the volume of a vessel available for sludge storage by a very small fraction compared to a cone-shaped vessel. The purpose of this study is to quantify the capability of sloped fins to disrupt VSBs and to conduct sufficient tests to estimate the performance of fins in full-scale STSCs. Experiments were conducted with a range of fin shapes to determine what slope and width were sufficient to disrupt VSBs. Additional tests were conducted to demonstrate how the fin performance scales with the sludge layer thickness and the sludge strength, density, and vessel diameter based on the gravity yield parameter, which is a dimensionless ratio of the force necessary to yield the sludge to its weight.( ) Further experiments evaluated the difference between vessels with flat and 2:1 elliptical bottoms and a number of different simulants, including the KW container sludge simulant (complete), which was developed to match actual K-Basin sludge. Testing was conducted in 5-in., 10-in., and 23-in.-diameter vessels to quantify how fin performance is impacted by the size of the test vessel. The most significant results for these scale-up tests are the trend in how behavior changes with vessel size and the results from the 23-in. vessel. The key objective in evaluating fin performance is to determine the conditions that minimize the volume of a VSB when disruption occurs because this reduces the potential for material inside the STSC from being released through vents

The Disruption of Vessel-Spanning Bubbles with Sloped Fins in Flat-Bottom and 2:1 Elliptical-Bottom Vessels

Radioactive sludge was generated in the K-East Basin and K-West Basin fuel storage pools at the Hanford Site while irradiated uranium metal fuel elements from the N Reactor were being stored and packaged. The fuel has been removed from the K Basins, and currently, the sludge resides in the KW Basin in large underwater Engineered Containers. The first phase to the Sludge Treatment Project being led by CH2MHILL Plateau Remediation Company (CHPRC) is to retrieve and load the sludge into sludge transport and storage containers (STSCs) and transport the sludge to T Plant for interim storage. The STSCs will be stored inside T Plant cells that are equipped with secondary containment and leak-detection systems. The sludge is composed of a variety of particulate materials and water, including a fraction of reactive uranium metal particles that are a source of hydrogen gas. If a situation occurs where the reactive uranium metal particles settle out at the bottom of a container, previous studies have shown that a vessel-spanning gas layer above the uranium metal particles can develop and can push the overlying layer of sludge upward. The major concern, in addition to the general concern associated with the retention and release of a flammable gas such as hydrogen, is that if a vessel-spanning bubble (VSB) forms in an STSC, it may drive the overlying sludge material to the vents at the top of the container. Then it may be released from the container into the cell’s secondary containment system at T Plant. A previous study demonstrated that sloped walls on vessels, both cylindrical coned-shaped vessels and rectangular vessels with rounded ends, provided an effective approach for disrupting a VSB by creating a release path for gas as a VSB began to rise. Based on the success of sloped-wall vessels, a similar concept is investigated here where a sloped fin is placed inside the vessel to create a release path for gas. A key potential advantage of using a sloped fin compared to a vessel with a sloped wall is that a small fin decreases the volume of a vessel available for sludge storage by a very small fraction compared to a cone-shaped vessel. The purpose of this study is to quantify the capability of sloped fins to disrupt VSBs and to conduct sufficient tests to estimate the performance of fins in full-scale STSCs. Experiments were conducted with a range of fin shapes to determine what slope and width were sufficient to disrupt VSBs. Additional tests were conducted to demonstrate how the fin performance scales with the sludge layer thickness and the sludge strength, density, and vessel diameter based on the gravity yield parameter, which is a dimensionless ratio of the force necessary to yield the sludge to its weight.( ) Further experiments evaluated the difference between vessels with flat and 2:1 elliptical bottoms and a number of different simulants, including the KW container sludge simulant (complete), which was developed to match actual K-Basin sludge. Testing was conducted in 5-in., 10-in., and 23-in.-diameter vessels to quantify how fin performance is impacted by the size of the test vessel. The most significant results for these scale-up tests are the trend in how behavior changes with vessel size and the results from the 23-in. vessel. The key objective in evaluating fin performance is to determine the conditions that minimize the volume of a VSB when disruption occurs because this reduces the potential for material inside the STSC from being released through vents

Lateral Earth Pressure at Rest and Shear Modulus Measurements on Hanford Sludge Simulants

This report describes the equipment, techniques, and results of lateral earth pressure at rest and shear modulus measurements on kaolin clay as well as two chemical sludge simulants. The testing was performed in support of the problem of hydrogen gas retention and release encountered in the double- shell tanks (DSTs) at the Hanford Site near Richland, Washington. Wastes from single-shell tanks (SSTs) are being transferred to double-shell tanks (DSTs) for safety reasons (some SSTs are leaking or are in danger of leaking), but the available DST space is limited

Hanford Tank Farms Waste Certification Flow Loop Phase IV: PulseEcho Sensor Evaluation

Hanford Tank Farms Waste Certification Flow Loop Phase IV: PulseEcho Sensor Evaluatio

Large-Scale Spray Releases: Additional Aerosol Test Results

One of the events postulated in the hazard analysis for the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) and other U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear facilities is a breach in process piping that produces aerosols with droplet sizes in the respirable range. The current approach for predicting the size and concentration of aerosols produced in a spray leak event involves extrapolating from correlations reported in the literature. These correlations are based on results obtained from small engineered spray nozzles using pure liquids that behave as a Newtonian fluid. The narrow ranges of physical properties on which the correlations are based do not cover the wide range of slurries and viscous materials that will be processed in the WTP and in processing facilities across the DOE complex. To expand the data set upon which the WTP accident and safety analyses were based, an aerosol spray leak testing program was conducted by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). PNNL’s test program addressed two key technical areas to improve the WTP methodology (Larson and Allen 2010). The first technical area was to quantify the role of slurry particles in small breaches where slurry particles may plug the hole and prevent high-pressure sprays. The results from an effort to address this first technical area can be found in Mahoney et al. (2012a). The second technical area was to determine aerosol droplet size distribution and total droplet volume from prototypic breaches and fluids, including sprays from larger breaches and sprays of slurries for which literature data are mostly absent. To address the second technical area, the testing program collected aerosol generation data at two scales, commonly referred to as small-scale and large-scale testing. The small-scale testing and resultant data are described in Mahoney et al. (2012b), and the large-scale testing and resultant data are presented in Schonewill et al. (2012). In tests at both scales, simulants were used to mimic the relevant physical properties projected for actual WTP process streams

Test Loop Demonstration and Evaluation of Slurry Transfer Line Critical Velocity Measurement Instruments

This report presents the results of the evaluation of three ultrasonic sensors for detecting critical velocity during slurry transfer between the Hanford tank farms and the WTP