The Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) Waste Management Program (WMP) began a transition to become a {open_quotes}best of class{close_quotes} waste management program during fiscal year 1995 (FY95). A best of class waste management program means that LANL will provide cost-effective and compliant management of the minimum amount of waste. In FY94, the WMP could be characterized as a level of effort program requiring several new facilities and new LANL-developed technologies to carry out its waste management responsibilities. By the end of FY95, significant progress had been made in the transition to best of class. The FY96 WMP is realigned and reorganized. Its budget and scope of work are built upon discrete work packages. It is committed to achieving improved cost-effectiveness, providing significant tangible technical results, and to having its performance measured. During FY95, over $11,000,000 in facility and operational costs were avoided. The need for three new major facilities was reexamined and lower cost solutions, not requiring the development of new facilities, were agreed to. Technology development activities were terminated and replaced with the use of commercial facilities to achieve aggressive reductions in the Low-Level Mixed Waste legacy inventory. In addition, over $14,000,000 in improved cost-effectiveness has been included in …

The Expedited Technology Demonstration Project Plan, Mixed Waste Management Facility (MWMF) current baseline. The revised plan will focus efforts specifically on the demonstration of an integrated Molten Salt Oxidation (MSO) system. In addition to the MSO primary unit, offgas, and salt recycle subsystems, the demonstrations will include feed preparation and feed delivery systems, and the generation of robust final forms from process mineral residues. A simplified process flow chart for the expedited demonstration is provided. To minimize costs and to accelerate the schedule for deployment, the integrated system will be staged in an existing facility at LLNL equipped to handle hazardous and radioactive materials. The MSO systems will be activated in fiscal year 97, followed by the activation of feed preparation and final forms in fiscal year 98.

The purpose of this revision is to update the Line Item Project, 93-L-GFW-152 Functional Design Criteria (FDC) to reflect changes approved in change control M-24-91-6, Engineering Change Notices (ECNs), and expand the scope to include subsurface investigations along with the borehole drilling. This revision improves the ability and effectiveness of maintaining RCRA and Operational groundwater compliance by combining borehole and well drilling with subsurface data gathering objectives. The total projected number of wells to be installed under this project has decreased from 200 and the scope has been broadened to include additional subsurface investigation activities that usually occur simultaneously with most traditional borehole drilling and monitoring well installations. This includes borehole hydrogeologic characterization activities, and vadose monitoring. These activities are required under RCRA 40 CFR 264 and 265 and WAC 173-303 for site characterization, groundwater and vadose assessment and well placement.

The general purpose of the Grout Stabilization Development Program is to solidify and stabilize the liquid low-level wastes (LLW) generated at the Idaho Chemical Processing Plant (ICPP). It is anticipated that LLW will be produced from the following: (1) chemical separation of the tank farm high-activity sodium-bearing waste; (2) retrieval, dissolution, and chemical separation of the aluminum, zirconium, and sodium calcines; (3) facility decontamination processes; and (4) process equipment waste. The main tasks completed this fiscal year as part of the program were chromium stabilization study for sodium-bearing waste and stabilization and solidification of LLW from aluminum and zirconium calcines. The projected LLW will be highly acidic and contain high amounts of nitrates. Both of these are detrimental to Portland cement chemistry; thus, methods to precondition the LLW and to cure the grout were explored. A thermal calcination process, called denitration, was developed to solidify the waste and destroy the nitrates. A three-way blend of Portland cement, blast furnace slag, and fly ash was successfully tested. Grout cubes were prepared at various waste loadings to maximize loading while meeting compressive strength and leach resistance requirements. For the sodium LLW, a 25% waste loading achieves a volume reduction of 3.5 and …

Preliminary experiment has been made for cross injecting water sprays into a convective air stream to test the air-blast atomization system which has been constructed for CWS atomization in the future. A laser diffraction particle analyzing technique (the Malvern system) nonintrusively measured the drop size SMDs for various injection parameters including the convective air flow rate, flow rate of the injected liquid (distilled water), orifice diameter, and measurement locations along the two-dimensional spray plane. Buckingham-PI analysis finds the correlation of dimensionless parameters. A correlation of drop Sauter mean diameter (SMD) normalized to the orifice diameter is obtained from all the experimental data for the case of distilled water sprays.

Uranium and plutonium production at the Hanford Site produced large quantities of radioactive by-products and contaminated process chemicals, which are stored in underground tanks awaiting treatment and disposal. Having been made strongly alkaline and then subjected to successive water evaporation campaigns to increase storage capacity, the wastes now exist in the physical forms of salt cakes, metal oxide sludges, and partially saturated aqueous brine solutions. The tanks that contain organic process chemicals mixed with nitrate/nitrite salt wastes may be at risk for fuel- nitrate combustion accidents. The purpose of the Waste Aging Task is to elucidate how chemical and radiological processes will have aged or degraded the organic compounds stored in the tanks. Ultimately, the task seeks to develop quantitative measures of how aging changes the energetic properties of the wastes. This information will directly support efforts to evaluate the hazard as well as to develop potential control and mitigation strategies.

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) research and development efforts are concentrated on DOE`s environmental quality mission and the scientific research required to support that mission. The Laboratory also supports the energy resources and national security missions in areas where an overlap between our core competencies and DOE`s goals exists. Fiscal year 1996 saw the Laboratory focus its efforts on the results necessary for us to meet DOE`s most important needs and expectations. Six Critical Outcomes were established in partnership with DOE. The Laboratory met or exceeded performance expectations in most areas, including these outcomes and the implementation of the Laboratory`s Integrated Assessment Program. We believe our overall performance for this evaluation period has been outstanding. A summary of results and key issues is provided.

The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory`s Integrated Assessment Program (IAP) is the primary system to assess and monitor overall performance and to drive continuous improvement in the Laboratory. The approach used is a significant departure from the Laboratory`s traditional reliance on auditing methods. It is a move toward the contemporary concepts of measuring organizational performance by encouraging scientific, operational, and business excellence, through self-assessment and strengthening line management accountability for results in product and service quality, safety, and cost. This report describes the approach used (methods and processes), the deployment of that approach in the six Laboratory organizations selected to pilot the approach, and a summary of how the pilot organizations used the results they obtained. Section 3.0 of this report summarizes the top strengths and weaknesses in performance as identified by Division/Directorate self-assessments, Independent Oversight, Internal Audit and peer reviews, and includes the actions that have been, or will be taken, to improve performance in areas that are weak.

Millions of gallons of radioactive wastes resides in underground tanks at US Department of Energy sites. The waste was generated primarily by the processing of nuclear fuel elements to remove fissile radionuclides for use in atomic weapons. Plans call for the waste to be removed from the tanks and processed to create immobile waste forms, which will be stored to prevent release to the environment. The consistency of the waste ranges from liquid, to slurry, to sticky sludge, to hard saltcake. a variety of waste- retrieval and processing methods are being evaluated and implemented. One such method is pulsed-air mixing, which is the subject of this report. Pulsed-air mixing equipment has been successfully applied to a number of difficult mixing applications in various chemical-process industries. Most previous applications involved the mixing of particle-free viscous fluids. The study described in this report was preformed to improve the understanding of how pulsed-air mixing applies to slurries. This document describes work conducted to evaluate the potential application of pulsed-air mixers to the slurry- mixing needs of the US Department of Energy`s waste-retrieval programs.

The purpose of this report is to document the contributions that the Savannah River Technology Center (SRTC) has made during Fiscal Year 1996 in the Robotics and Remote Systems Technology arena. The contributions originated from the Applied Science and Engineering Technology (ASET) Department`s Equipment Engineering Section (EES). Activities and deliverables for the Savannah River Site`s (SRS) main operating divisions as well as contributions to new mission activities, other Department of Energy (DOE) sites and programs, intellectual property development and professional societies are described.

This describes a comprehensive, integrated approach for the development of HTS (high-temperature superconductivity) technology for cost-effective use in electric power applications. This approach supports the program`s mission: to develop the technology that could lead to industrial commercialization of HTS electric power applications, such as fault-current limiters, motors, generators, transmission cables, superinductors, and superconducting energy storage. The vision is that, by 2010, the US power systems equipment industry will regain a major share of the global market by offering superconducting products that outperform the competition; and in US, the power grid will gain increased efficiency and stability by incorporating many kinds of HTS devices. After an overview and a discussion of the program plan (wires, systems technology, partnership initiative), this document discusses technology status, stakeholders, and the role of US DOE.

The Retrieval Process Development and Enhancements (RPD&E) activities are part of the Retrieval and Closure Program of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) EM-50 Tanks Focus Area. The purposes of RPD&E are to understand retrieval processes, including emerging and existing technologies, and to gather data on those processes, so that end users have the requisite technical basis to make retrieval decisions. Work has been initiated to support the need for multiple retrieval technologies across the DOE complex. Technologies addressed during FY96 focused on enhancements to sluicing, borehole mining, confined sluicing retrieval end effectors, the lightweight scarifier, and pulsed air mixing. Furthermore, a decision tool and database have been initiated to link retrieval processes with tank closure to assist end users in making retrieval decisions.