Page 3 - SRNS_Today_May_2021
P. 3
MAY 2021 | SRNS TODAY | 3
A train engine pushes a burial box full of failed equipment from H Canyon to the Solid Waste Management Facility for disposal. The equipment is being removed to make
way for a new H Canyon spent nuclear fuel dissolving campaign.
H Canyon makes room for
new dissolver and new mission
RNS employees are preparing for an upcoming campaign Engineering provided support to this effort by designing and
to dissolve stainless-steel clad spent nuclear fuel by retrofitting the cutter and grapple controls to allow for operators to
S disposing of old equipment to make room for the installation utilize the H Canyon Hot Crane to remotely operate these tools. These
of a new dissolver and an additional double-sized tank for dissolved tools will be used to remotely reduce the size of jumpers and other
material storage. large failed equipment to maximize the amount of equipment loaded
“The upcoming dissolving campaign will add a third electrolytic into a burial box.
dissolver to the complement of equipment already in use in the “We will be better protecting our workers through the use of this
canyon and will provide the capability to dissolve stainless steel fuel,” equipment, since the material will be cut remotely instead of in person
said SRNS Senior Vice President of Environmental Management by employees,” said Brown. “While this equipment was specifically
(EM) Operations Wyatt Clark. “The current chemical dissolvers are purchased for the upcoming dissolving campaign, we will be able to
designed to dissolve aluminum-clad fuel, so they are not adequate to utilize it for future missions as well.”
support the upcoming mission.”
Preparations for the new campaign also include preparing and
A significant deactivation and removal campaign is underway to calibrating the double-sized tank and new dissolver with the use of
prepare for the mission. Timely and safe disposition of legacy a bladder tank and pump system. The use of the bladder tank and
equipment is essential to keep the project on schedule. H Canyon pump system speeds up the calibration process by pumping water
recently completed removing the first of three shipments of legacy versus using a domestic water hose to fill the 50- and 150-gallon
equipment to make room for this new campaign. prover tanks, which are vessels used to add a specific volume
“When jumpers or other H Canyon equipment fails and needs to of water to the tanks being calibrated. Once a calibration run is
be replaced, the failed equipment is placed in a large engineered complete, the water is pumped from the vessel back to the bladder
container called a burial box, using the canyon remote cranes,” SRNS tank, using recycled water instead of fresh water for each of the four
Project Manager for EM Operations Richard Brown said. “Once that minimum calibration runs per vessel.
box is full, we secure the package, verify it is free of any radioactive The stainless-steel clad fuel is currently stored in SRS’ K Area and will
contamination and transfer it to the SRS Solid Waste Management be shipped to the canyon for processing. Once the fuel is dissolved
Facility for disposal.” in the electrolytic dissolver, the resulting solution will be transferred
In an effort to minimize the number of burial boxes required to to the liquid waste tank farms. The material will then be transferred to
remove the failed equipment, SRNS purchased a size reduction tool the Defense Waste Processing Facility where it will be made into glass
(i.e., cutter) and grapple system. SRNL Research and Development and placed in an SRS storage facility for interim storage.