Heat Transfer Analysis for Nuclear Waste Solidification Container

The Nuclear Nonproliferation Programs Design Authority is in the design stage of the Waste Solidification Building (WSB) for the treatment and solidification of the radioactive liquid waste streams generated by the Pit Disassembly and Conversion Facility (PDCF) and Mixed Oxide (MOX) Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF). The waste streams will be mixed with a cementitious dry mix in a 55-gallon waste container. Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) has been performing the testing and evaluations to support technical decisions for the WSB. Engineering Modeling & Simulation Group was requested to evaluate the thermal performance of the 55-gallon drum containing hydration heat source associated with the current baseline cement waste form. A transient axi-symmetric heat transfer model for the drum partially filled with waste form cement has been developed and heat transfer calculations performed for the baseline design configurations. For this case, 65 percent of the drum volume was assumed to be filled with the waste form, which has transient hydration heat source, as one of the baseline conditions. A series of modeling calculations has been performed using a computational heat transfer approach. The baseline modeling results show that the time to reach the maximum temperature of the 65 percent filled drum is about 32 hours when a 43°C initial cement temperature is assumed to be cooled by natural convection with 27°C external air. In addition, the results computed by the present model were compared with analytical solutions. The modeling results will be benchmarked against the prototypic test results. The verified model will be used for the evaluation of the thermal performance for the WSB drum. Detailed results and the cases considered in the calculations will be discussed here.