Corrosion Analysis in Risky Environments: Assessment of Pipelines Used on the Hanford Nuclear Site

Available for download

Product Number: 51315-5968-SG

ISBN: 5968 2015 CP

Author: Jason Page

Publication Date: 2015

Member Price: $0.00

Non Member Price: $0.00

Price: $0.00

Qty:

The Hanford site near Richland WA has approximately 56 million gallons of high-level radioactive waste stored in carbon steel underground tanks awaiting treatment. Central to the future cleanup of this site is the transportation of this waste through carbon steel and stainless steel pipes to a vitrification plant to enable long term disposal. Failures of the tanks and associated pipelines due to corrosion puts the environment and workers at extreme risks; therefore measures to protect the metal from corrosion and to monitor thecorrosion are a high priority. We present corrosion forensic analyses on several pipeline sections both carbon steel and stainless steel which were in service for several years transporting millions of gallons of radioactive nuclear waste. The unique challenges which limit or modify the use of routine corrosion analysis techniques are discussed with approaches and solutions dealing with performing the work in abnormal and dangerous environments such as near radioactive pipe sections and samples. By using a combination of ultrasonic transducer measurements for non-destructive pipe wall thickness measurements and scanning electron microscopy analysis of coupons cut from selected areas on the pipes corrosion and erosion corrosion was characterized and the amount of corrosion was obtained to determine lifetimes for the pipe sections to guide engineering and maintenance activities on the Hanford Nuclear Site.