Pretreatment Facility shield doors installed at Hanford Waste Treatment Plant
Wed, January 28, 2009Contact: Suzanne Heaston, Bechtel National, Inc., Waste Treatment Plant Communications
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Richland, Wash. — Two massive shield doors were recently installed in the Pretreatment (PT) Facility at the Hanford Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP), or vit plant, demonstrating steady construction progress. The 22-ton steel doors are each 10 feet high, 11 feet wide and approximately eight inches thick. Installed late last week and early this week, they are the first of ten remaining shield doors to be installed in the facility.
“The installation of mechanical equipment, such as these shield doors, augments progress being made with concrete and steel in the facility,” Leon Lamm, area project manager for the PT Facility, said. “Lifting the doors into place now will allow us to continue with installation of the steel and concrete on the floors above them.”
Both of these shield doors will support filter maintenance operations and provide radiological shielding protection to workers in the PT Facility when the vit plant is operational.
The first door, the cask lidding room shield door, was installed on January 22 in the southeast corner of the first floor. When the WTP is operational, drums filled with waste will be lowered into the cask lidding room through a hatch. There, they will be placed in the casks and sealed with lids.
On January 27, the second door, the drum lidding room shield door, was installed in the southeast corner of the second floor. It provides access for equipment and personnel to enter a radiological-controlled area that will be used to receive waste and package it in 55-gallon drums using remotely operated equipment. The closed shield door will protect workers while radioactive materials are in the controlled area.
Currently, construction on the PT Facility is more than 25 percent complete. The PT Facility spans approximately one and one-half football fields in length and more than one field in width. When complete, it will contain more than 113,000 cubic yards of concrete, nearly 17,000 tons of structural steel and 102 miles of piping.
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.
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 2002. The plant will be operational in 2019.