North Tank Farm data report for the Gunite and Associated Tanks at Oak Ridge National Laboratory

The US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science and Technology, in cooperation with the Oak Ridge Environmental Management Program, has developed and demonstrated the first full-scale remotely operated system for cleaning radioactive liquid and waste from large underground storage tanks. The remotely operated waste retrieval system developed and demonstrated at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is designed to accomplish both retrieval of bulk waste, including liquids, thick sludge, and scarified concrete, and final tank cleaning. This report provides a summary of the North Tank Farm (NTF) operations data and an assessment of the performance and efficiency of the waste retrieval system during NTF operations data and an assessment of the performance and efficiency of the waste retrieval system during NTF operations. The organization of this report is as follows: Section 1 provides an introduction to the report. Section 2 describes the NTF tank structures (W-3 and W-4 only) and the contents of the tanks. Section 3 outlines the objectives of the NTF testing and explains how these objectives were met. Section 4 provides a description of the various operating systems used in the NTF operations. Sections 5 and 6 present a summary of the data collected during NTF operations. Section 7 summarizes the maintenance activities performed and Section 8 summarizes the on-the-job training performed in the NTF. Section 9 summarizes the capital cost for the waste retrieval and characterization equipment and operating costs for performing the NTF work. Section 10 provides observations and lessons learned, and Section 11 provides a summary and conclusions