Decontamination of the 233-S Building Loadout Hood

摘要

This paper summarizes the engineering and field work conducted to decontaminate the 233-S Building Loadout Hood, a plutonium nitrate loadout facility highly contaminated with transuranics. The scope of work supporting the Loadout Hood decontamination effort included a detailed physical and radiological characterization, decontamination/fixation to reduce surface contamination to levels which would allow structural dismantling to be conducted with minimum airborne contamination, and dismantling to remove contaminated components. Decontamination operations were performed in a deliberate, systematic manner to generate data for evaluating the technology and methods used. Pre-dismantling decontamination and fixation efforts were designed to clean Loadout Hood internal surfaces in-place to nondetectable surface contamination levels as an alternative to dismantling in a loose contamination environment. Results of this approach as well as the effectiveness of a HEPA filtered vacuum cleaner, and several different decontamination chemicals and fixatives are evaluated. Recommendations based on lessons learned are made for future decontamination and decommissioning operations. (ERA citation 05:032670)