Evaluation of residue drum storage safety risks

摘要

A study was conducted to determine if any potential safety problems exist in the residue drum backlog at the Rocky Flats Plant. Plutonium residues stored in 55-gallon drums were packaged for short-term storage until the residues could be processed for plutonium recovery. These residues have now been determined by the Department of Energy to be waste materials, and the residues will remain in storage until plans for disposal of the material can be developed. The packaging configurations which were safe for short-term storage may not be safe for long-term storage. Interviews with Rocky Flats personnel involved with packaging the residues reveal that more than one packaging configuration was used for some of the residues. A tabulation of packaging configurations was developed based on the information obtained from the interviews. A number of potential safety problems were identified during this study, including hydrogen generation from some residues and residue packaging materials, contamination containment loss, metal residue packaging container corrosion, and pyrophoric plutonium compound formation. Risk factors were developed for evaluating the risk potential of the various residue categories, and the residues in storage at Rocky Flats were ranked by risk potential. Preliminary drum head space gas sampling studies have demonstrated the potential for formation of flammable hydrogen-oxygen mixtures in some residue drums.