Civil construction continues at the High-Level Waste Vitrification Facility as Bechtel employees at the Hanford Vit Plant placed three large concrete slabs at the 58-foot elevation. The HLW facility is one element of a waste processing plant that will vitrify nuclear waste at the Hanford site.
The three slabs, numbered 4033, 4020, and 4023, combined for more than 430 cubic yards of concrete for the floor at the current top of the HLW Facility. A typical 10 foot by 10 foot backyard concrete pad requires roughly 1.5 cubic yards of concrete.
Slab 4020 measures 66 feet long by 24 feet wide by nearly 4 feet thick and required 210 cubic yards of concrete. Slab 4023 measures 37 feet long by 98 feet wide by 1 foot thick and required 124 cubic yards of concrete. Slab 4033 measures 76 feet long by 36 feet wide by 1 foot thick and required 100 cubic yards of concrete.
The 58-foot elevation is the fifth of six levels as the HLW is built up to a height of 95 feet. The HLW is one of four nuclear facilities being built at the 65-acre Vit Plant site to treat 56 million gallons of radioactive waste stored in 177 aging underground tanks on the Hanford Site.