Fiscal year 1994 1/25-scale sludge mobilization testing

There are 28 one-million-gallon double-shell radioactive waste tanks on the Hanford Reservation in southeastern Washington State. The waste in these tanks was generated during processing of nuclear materials. Solids-laden slurries were placed into many of the tanks. Over time, the waste solids have settled to form a layer of sludge in the bottom of these tanks. The sludge layer thickness varies from tank to tank with some having only a few centimeters or no sludge up to some tanks which have about 4.5 m (15 ft) of sludge. It is planned that the waste will be removed from these tanks as part of the overall Hanford site cleanup efforts. Jet mixer pumps are to be placed into the tanks to stir up (mobilize) the sludge and form a uniform slurry suitable for pumping to downstream processing facilities. These mixer pumps use powerful jets of tank fluid directed horizontally out of two, diametrically opposed nozzles near the tank bottom. These fluid jets impinge upon the sludge and stir it up. The amount of sludge mobilized by the mixer pump jets depends not only on the jet properties, but also on the ability of the sludge to resist the jets. It is the goal of the work described in this document to develop the ability to predict how much sludge will be mobilized by the mixer pumps based on the size and velocity of the mixer pump jets and the physical and chemical properties of the tank sludge