SALT CORE SAMPLING EVOLUTION AT THE SAVANNAH RIVER SITE

The Savannah River Site (SRS), a Department of Energy (DOE) facility, has over 30 million gallons of legacy waste from its many years of processing nuclear materials. The majority of waste is stored in 49 buried tanks. Available underground piping is the primary and desired pathway to transfer waste from one tank to another until the waste is delivered to the glass plant, DWPF, or the grout plant, Saltstone. Prior to moving the material, the tank contents need to be evaluated to ensure the correct destination for the waste is chosen. Access ports are available in each tank top in a number of locations and sizes to be used to obtain samples of the waste for analysis. Material consistencies vary for each tank with the majority of waste to be processed being radioactive salts and sludge. The following paper describes the progression of equipment and techniques developed to obtain core samples of salt and solid sludge at SRS