Concrete Property and Radionuclide Migration Tests

The Waste Management Project provides safe, compliant, and cost-effective waste management services for the Hanford Site and the DOE Complex. Part of theses services includes safe disposal of LLW and MLLW at the Hanford Low-Level Waste Burial Grounds (LLBG) in accordance with the requirements listed in DOE Order 435.1, Radioactive Waste Management. To partially satisfy these requirements, a Performance Assessment (PA) analyses were completed and approved. DOE Order 435.1 also requires that continuing data collection be conducted to enhance confidence in the critical assumptions used in these analyses to characterize the operational features of the disposal facility that are relied upon to satisfy the performance objectives identified in the Order. One critical assumption is that concrete will frequently be used as waste form or container material to control and minimize the release of radionuclide constituents in waste into the surrounding environment. Data was collected to (1) quantify radionuclide migration through concrete materials similar to those used to encapsulate waste in the LLBG, (2) measure the properties of the concrete materials, especially those likely to influence radionuclide migration, and (3) quantify the stability of U-bearing solid phases of limited solubility in concrete.