Integrated Waste Feed Qualification Program for Direct LAW Feed to WTP - 16421
The Hanford Tank Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) is a one-of-a-kind facility being designed and constructed for DOE by Bechtel National, Inc. (BNI) and principal subcontractor URS, to process and vitrify radioactive waste stored in underground tanks at the Hanford Site. The Tank Operations Contractor (TOC), Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS), has the responsibility to retrieve, stage, pretreat, and deliver feed directly to the WTP Low Activity Waste (LAW) Vitrification Facility. The Direct Feed LAW (DFLAW) scenario is being considered by DOE as a strategy to treat Hanford tank wastes as soon as practicable. Extensive planning is underway by One System, an effort with joint participation by WTP and TOC personnel. The initial focus of One System is to achieve the required integration to ensure the waste feed meets acceptance requirements for processing in the TOC Low Activity Waste Pretreatment System (LAWPS) and WTP LAW facilities. The integrated waste feed qualification program approach for DFLAW was defined by One System during a four-day workshop. The effort resulted in a feasible approach for integrating LAWPS and LAW feed acceptance requirements to vitrify low-activity waste while complying with facility design basis, safety basis, waste acceptance criteria, and glass product compliance. The defined qualification program will provide a systematic approach to test newly staged feed campaigns at bench-scale using actual tank waste samples. The required integration and basis for obtaining sufficient and necessary data to qualify the feed for DFLAW facilities are discussed in this paper. (authors)