Flammable gas data evaluation. Progress report (original) (raw)

The Hanford Site is home to 177 large, underground nuclear waste storage tanks. Numerous safety and environmental concerns surround these tanks and their contents. One such concern is the propensity for the waste in these tanks to generate, retain, and periodically release flammable gases. This report documents some of the activities of the Flammable Gas Project Data Evaluation Task conducted for Westinghouse Hanford Company during fiscal year 1996. Described in this report are: 1) the results of examining the in-tank temperature measurements for insights into gas release behavior; 2) the preliminary results of examining the tank waste level measurements for insights into gas release behavior; and 3) an explanation for the observed hysteresis in the level/pressure measurements, a phenomenon observed earlier this year when highfrequency tank waste level measurements came on-line. This report, as is always the case, has benefited greatly from the comments of the peer, program and editorial reviewers: Tom Ferryman, Joe Brothers, Frank Ryan and Andrea Currie, respectively. Much of the fundamental research behind our understanding of the tank level and temperature measurements, as well as the machinery to handle these data, was supported by the Tank Surveillance group at Westinghouse Hanford Company, which at various times included Richard