In 1997, the first two United States Department of Energy (US DOE) high level waste tanks (Tanks 17-F and 20-F: Type IV, single shell tanks) were taken out of service (permanently closed) at the Savannah River Site (SRS). In 2012, the DOE plans to remove from service two additional Savannah River Site (SRS) Type IV high-level waste tanks, Tanks 18-F and 19-F. These tanks were constructed in the late 1950's and received low-heat waste and do not contain cooling coils. Operational closure of Tanks 18-F and 19-F is intended to be consistent with the applicable requirements of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) and will be performed in accordance with South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (SCDHEC). The closure will physically stabilize two 4.92E+04 cubic meter (1.3 E+06 gallon) carbon steel tanks and isolate and stabilize any residual contaminants left in the tanks. The closure will also fill, physically stabilize and isolate ancillary equipment abandoned in the tanks. A Performance Assessment (PA) has been developed to assess the long-term fate and transport of residual contamination in the environment resulting from the operational closure of the F-Area Tank …

In this study, hydraulic and seismic tomographic measurements were used to derive a site-specific relationship between the geophysical parameter p-wave velocity and the hydraulic parameters, diffusivity and specific storage. Our field study includes diffusivity tomograms derived from hydraulic travel time tomography, specific storage tomograms, derived from hydraulic attenuation tomography, and p-wave velocity tomograms, derived from seismic tomography. The tomographic inversion was performed in all three cases with the SIRT (Simultaneous Iterative Reconstruction Technique) algorithm, using a ray tracing technique with curved trajectories. The experimental set-up was designed such that the p-wave velocity tomogram overlaps the hydraulic tomograms by half. The experiments were performed at a wellcharacterized sand and gravel aquifer, located in the Leine River valley near Göttingen, Germany. Access to the shallow subsurface was provided by direct-push technology. The high spatial resolution of hydraulic and seismic tomography was exploited to derive representative site-specific relationships between the hydraulic and geophysical parameters, based on the area where geophysical and hydraulic tests were performed. The transformation of the p-wave velocities into hydraulic properties was undertaken using a k-means cluster analysis. Results demonstrate that the combination of hydraulic and geophysical tomographic data is a promising approach to improve hydrogeophysical site characterization.

While the storage of hydrogen for portable and stationary applications is regarded as critical in bringing PEM fuel cells to commercial acceptance, little is known of the environmental exposure risks posed in utilizing condensed phase chemical storage options as in complex hydrides. It is thus important to understand the effect of environmental exposure of metal hydrides in the case of accident scenarios. Simulated tests were performed following the United Nations standards to test for flammability and water reactivity in air for a destabilized lithium borohydride and magnesium hydride system in a 2 to 1 molar ratio respectively. It was determined that the mixture acted similarly to the parent, lithium borohydride, but at slower rate of reaction seen in magnesium hydride. To quantify environmental exposure kinetics, isothermal calorimetry was utilized to measure the enthalpy of reaction as a function of exposure time to dry and humid air, and liquid water. The reaction with liquid water was found to increase the heat flow significantly during exposure compared to exposure in dry or humid air environments. Calorimetric results showed the maximum normalized heat flow the fully charged material was 6 mW/mg under liquid phase hydrolysis; and 14 mW/mg for the fully discharged material …

New materials with high magnetic anisotropy will have domains separated by ultra-narrow ferromagnetic walls with widths on the order of a few unit cells, approaching the limit where the elastic continuum approximation often used in micromagnetic simulations is accurate. The limits of this approximation are explored, and the static and dynamic interactions with intrinsic crystalline defects and external driving #12;elds are modeled. The results developed here will be important when considering the stability of ultra-high-density storage media.

Vibration analyses of equipment intended for use in the Savannah River Site (SRS) radioactive liquid waste storage tanks are performed during pre-deployment testing and has been demonstrated to be effective in reducing the life-cycle costs of the equipment. Benefits of using vibration analysis to identify rotating machinery problems prior to deployment in radioactive service will be presented in this paper. Problems encountered at SRS and actions to correct or lessen the severity of the problem are discussed. In short, multi-million dollar cost saving have been realized at SRS as a direct result of vibration analysis on existing equipment. Vibration analysis of equipment prior to installation can potentially reduce inservice failures, and increases reliability. High-level radioactive waste is currently stored in underground carbon steel waste tanks at the United States Department of Energy (DOE) Savannah River Site and at the Hanford Site, WA. Various types of rotating machinery (pumps and separations equipment) are used to manage and retrieve the tank contents. Installation, maintenance, and repair of these pumps and other equipment are expensive. In fact, costs to remove and replace a single pump can be as high as a half million dollars due to requirements for radioactive containment. Problems that lead …

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