Characterization engineering status report April 1997 - September 1997

The report identifies the activities of the Characterization Engineering organization for the time period of April through September 1997. Characterization Engineering (CE) continues to make progress in support of the project goal of characterizing the Hanford high level waste tanks. Two core sampling systems were operational during this reporting period, rotary mode core sample truck system No. 2 and push mode core sample truck system No. 1. The deployment of the third rotary mode core sample truck system No. 4 continued to be delayed during the reporting period due to exhauster design issues. The schedule to close the exhauster design issues had not yet been finalized at the end of the reporting period. The availability average for all core sampling systems for this period is 49%. This is an increase compared to 37% during the last reporting period. Sixteen tanks were core sampled during the reporting period and l40 samples were retrieved. This is the most tanks cores and segments ever sampled in a six month period. Average sampler recoveries exceeded the performance goals of 80% for system No. 1 and 60% for systems No. 2, No. 3, and No. 4