US EPA

7333559 

Meetings & Symposia 

The DOE safety basis process for nuclear facilities in the decommissioning and demolition life phase 

Schade, AR; Stahl, SM 

2005 

Glasgow, Scotland 

10th International Conference on Environmental Remediation and Radioactive Waste Management, ICEM'05 

2005 

2062-2069 

English 

The United States (US) Department of Energy (DOE) is in the process of deactivating, decontaminating, and demolishing over a thousand cold war nuclear weapons production and energy research facilities that no longer have a mission. This mission is assigned to the DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM). EM is assigned the mission of accelerating the cleanup and reducing the risk posed by these facilities. The EM mission is carried out through the use of private contractors selected by competitive bid. The Bechtel Jacobs Company LLC (BJC) has a DOE-EM contract to accelerate the cleanup of a number of facilities on the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee. The largest BJC activity is the removal of equipment from the K-25 and K-27 Gaseous Diffusion Plants and the demolition and disposal of these facilities. Building K-25 is a large three-story U-shape building consisting of wings on the west, north and east sides. The building contains approximately 4.76 million square feet of floor space placed into full operation in August 1945 for isotopic uranium enrichment to meet national defense requirements for World War II. The K-27 Building contains approximately 1.1 million square feet of floor space. During operation of the K-25 and K-27 Buildings, residual uranium deposits accumulated on the inner surfaces of the cascade equipment as a result of a reaction between UF 6 and the moisture introduced from air in-leakage. US law defines the safety basis requirements for DOE nuclear facilities. The governing law is Title 10 Code of Federal Regulation 830 (10CFR830), "Safety Basis Management". Part B, "Safety Basis Requirements" of that law defines the content and format for Safety Basis documents. Part B requires that the contractor operator of a high hazard DOE nuclear facility prepare a Documented Safety Analysis (DSA) and Technical Safety Requirements (TSR). Part B defines types of facilities and safe harbors documentation that may be used to prepare DSAs and TSRs. DOE-STD-1120-98, "Integration of Environment, Safety, and Health into Facility Disposition Activities", May 1998 is identified as the safe harbor methodology for the decommissioning of a DOE nuclear facility. The D&D of these buildings has been divided into three phases, Phase I Hazardous Material Abatement, Phase II Equipment Removal, and Phase III Buildings Demolition. Phase I activities were initiated under a Basis for Interim Operation (BIO) safety basis document. This document had been prepared and implemented using the DOE-STD-3011-94, "Guidance for Preparation of DOE 5480.22 (TSR) and DOE 5480.23 (SAR)" Implementation Plans prior to the promulgation of 10CRF830. To support Phase II and III activities, a DOE-STD-1120 DSA was developed. Due to the potential for a criticality accident and the presence of chemicals with the potential for fire accidents with high off site consequences, the DSA included accident analysis and extensive controls. To reduce the potential for fire related accidents, all unnecessary transient combustibles were removed from the facilities. TSR controls regulate combustible material use and storage :and all hot work. The fire suppression system is not credited as a safety significant system as it will be disabled during Decontamination and Demolition (D&D). BJC implemented the K-25/27 D&D DSA and TSR in April of 2005 and was authorized to begin Phase II equipment removal. The DOE process requires that the activities associated with the high mass component removal and the foaming of process gas components not be initiated until a formal DOE Operational Readiness Review (ORR) is conducted in the summer of 2005 (August-September). Copyright © 2005 by ASME. 

10CFR830; Documented safety analysis; Environmental management; Safety basis document; Technical safety requirements; 10CFR830; Documented safety analysis; Environmental management; Safety basis document; Technical safety requirements; Decommissioning (nuclear reactors); Environmental protection; Nuclear engineering; Radiation decontamination; Radioactive wastes; Requirements engineering; Nuclear industry