Demonstration of an approach to waste form qualification through simulation of liquid-fed ceramic melter process operations

During fiscal year 1982, the US Department of Energy (DOE) assigned responsibility for managing civilian nuclear waste treatment programs in the United States to the Nuclear Waste Treatment Program (NWTP) at the Pacific Northwest Laboratory (PNL). One of the principal objectives of this program is to establish relationships between vitrification process control and glass quality. Users of the liquid-fed ceramic melter (LFCM) process will need such relationships in order to establish acceptance of vitrified high-level nuclear waste at a licensed federal repository without resorting to destructive examination of the canisters. The objective is to be able to supply a regulatory agency with an estimate of the composition, durability, and integrity of the glass in each waste glass canister produced from an LFCM process simply by examining the process data collected during the operation of the LFCM. The work described here will continue through FY-1987 and culminate in a final report on the ability to control and monitor an LFCM process through sampling and process control charting of the LFCM feed system