Plutonium Surveillance Destructive Examination Requirements at Savannah River National Laboratory for K-Area Interim Surveillance

The DOE 3013 storage standard requires nested, welded 300 series stainless steel containers to store plutonium-bearing materials for up to 50 years. Packaged contents include stabilized plutonium-bearing residues that contain chloride salts and a low (< 0.5 weight %) water content. The DOE 3013 STD requires surveillance of the packages over the 50 year lifetime. These surveillance requirements have been further defined by the Integrated Surveillance Program to include both non-destructive examination (NDE) and destructive examination (DE) of the 3013 container. The DE portion of surveillance involves examining the 3013 nested containers, analyzing the head space gas, and evaluating the plutonium oxide chemistry. At SRS, the stored 3013 containers will undergo preparation for the DE surveillance activities in facilities located in K-Area. The actual DE surveillance will be performed in SRNL. This report provides preliminary functional requirements for the destructive examination (DE) of plutonium-bearing oxide materials and containers in support of K-Area Interim Surveillance (KIS). The KIS project will install interim facilities to prepare the samples for analysis in SRNL. This document covers the requirements for the interim period beginning in 2007, and lasting until the Container Storage and Surveillance Capability (CSSC) project provides the permanent facilities in K-Area to perform sampling and repackaging operations associated with the 3013 container storage and surveillance program. Initial requirements for the CSSC project have been previously defined in WSRC-TR-2004-00584 ''Plutonium Surveillance Destructive Examination Requirements at Savannah River National Laboratory''. As part of the Plutonium Surveillance Program of 3013 Containers at the Savannah River Site (SRS), the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) will receive the emptied 3013 container components, plutonium oxide samples and headspace gas samples from K-Area. The DE program scope includes chemical and metallurgical analyses for a maximum of 25 DE sets a year to provide essential data in support of the SRS Plutonium Surveillance Program. The normal operation is expected to be approximately 15 DE sets a year