| About this Abstract |
| Meeting |
Materials Science & Technology 2019
|
| Symposium
|
Materials Issues in Nuclear Waste Management
|
| Presentation Title |
P3-70: Glass Pool Flow in a Joule-Heated, Laboratory-Scale Melter |
| Author(s) |
Derek Cutforth, Derek Dixon, Jesse Lang, Will Eaton, Mike Schweiger |
| On-Site Speaker (Planned) |
Derek Cutforth |
| Abstract Scope |
The Hanford Tank Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant is being constructed to vitrify on-site nuclear waste. To convert the waste to glass, slurry feed (a mix of liquid waste and glass forming additives) is charged into a joule-heated melter operating at 1150°C. As the feed heats up, glass-forming reactions occur, and this reacting layer is referred to as the cold cap. To create cold-cap samples in the laboratory, a 10-cm fused-silica melter vessel was loaded with glass and heated by an external furnace while continuously charging slurry feed for a fixed amount of time. To better simulate conditions in the glass melters, the vessel was redesigned for the placement of electrodes in the glass melt so the system could be joule-heated. The convective flow in the glass melt was observed and is discussed with and without joule-heating as well as with and without the presence of a cold cap. |