Hanford Waste Treatment Plant welding manager elected as Bechtel Fellow
Tue, August 2, 2011Suzanne Heaston, Bechtel National, Inc., (509) 371-2329
Richland, Wash. — Richard Campbell, the welding manager at the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant, has been elected as a Bechtel Fellow. He joins more than 20 Bechtel Fellows from varying professional fields and organizations within the global corporation. Campbell is the first person from Bechtel's Construction organization to be named a Fellow.
Bechtel Fellows are selected for their substantial technical achievements over the years and advise senior Bechtel management on questions related to their areas of expertise, participate in strategic planning, and help disseminate new technical ideas and findings throughout the global corporation.
Campbell has been integral in addressing the complex welding requirements at the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant by helping to introduce automated orbital pipe welding, computed radiographic testing and automated ultrasonic testing of pipe welds.
He is known worldwide for his unique ability to blend highly theoretical metallurgical and welding engineering with the hands-on requirements of construction. In 1999, Campbell authored what has become a standard industry guidebook: The Professional's Advisor on Welding of Stainless Steels. He has also authored 18 other publications related to weld engineering, weld inspection and metallurgical engineering in various industries.
In addition, Campbell chairs the American Welding Society's D1.6 Structural Stainless Steel Welding Code Subcommittee and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers' (ASME's) Bioprocessing Equipment Material Joining Subcommittee. He is also a member of the American Society for Metals International.
Campbell earned his doctorate in materials engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York.
Bechtel National, Inc. is designing and building the world's largest radioactive waste treatment plant for the U.S. Department of Energy at the Hanford Site in southeastern Washington state. The $12.2 billion Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP), also known as the "Vit Plant," will immobilize the radioactive liquid waste currently stored in 177 underground tanks using a process called "vitrification."
Vitrification involves blending the waste with molten glass and heating it to high temperatures. The mixture is then poured into stainless steel canisters. In this glass form, the waste is stable and impervious to the environment, and its radioactivity will dissipate over hundreds to thousands of years.
The WTP will cover 65 acres with four nuclear facilities — Pretreatment, Low-Activity Waste Vitrification, High-Level Waste Vitrification and Analytical Laboratory — as well as operations and maintenance buildings, utilities and office space.
Construction of the WTP began in 2001 and is now 60 percent complete. The plant will be operational in 2019.