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Screening the Hanford tanks for trapped gas
Author(s) -
Whitney Paul,
Chen Guang
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
environmetrics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.68
H-Index - 58
eISSN - 1099-095X
pISSN - 1180-4009
DOI - 10.1002/env.533
Subject(s) - flammable liquid , hanford site , waste management , environmental science , storage tank , radioactive waste , volume (thermodynamics) , fuel tank , underground storage tank , environmental engineering , engineering , mechanical engineering , physics , quantum mechanics
The Hanford Site is home to 177 large, underground nuclear waste storage tanks. This article describes a screening study carried out in the mid 1990s that used the tank waste level measurements to assess the tanks for potential flammable gas hazards. At the time of the study, 25 of the 177 tanks were on the flammable gas watch list. The use of this monitoring data provided additional insight, resulting in operational changes on the Hanford site. The waste level measurements used in this study were made primarily to monitor the tanks for leaks and intrusions. Four measurement devices are widely used in these tanks. Three of these measure the level of the waste surface. The remaining device measures from within a well embedded in the waste, thereby monitoring the liquid level even if the liquid level is below a dry waste crust. The data from each of the four measurement devices were utilized in this investigation. The analytic method used for this screening was to look for an inverse correlation between waste level measurements and ambient atmospheric pressure. If the waste level in a tank decreases with an increase in ambient atmospheric pressure, then the compressibility may be attributed to gas trapped within the waste. In this article, this methodology is not used to estimate the volume of gas trapped in the waste. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.