The Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), specifically the Office of Material Management and Minimization (NA-23), is responsible for removing and/or securing special nuclear materials from around the globe that pose a threat to the U.S. and international community. The Savannah River Site (SRS) was tasked by NA-23 to support efforts by establishing a Plutonium Response Team and developing / procuring the necessary equipment to accomplish the goal of removing plutonium. This includes development of a Mobile Plutonium Facility (MPF) with the overall objective of ensuring the operating crew’s safety while fulfilling the mission to stabilize, package and ship special nuclear material in the most expeditious manner possible. The MPF is a system of intermodal shipping modules with the capability of safely inspecting, characterizing, stabilizing, repackaging, and storing plutonium (short term) while maintaining inventory accountability. The MPF can be rapidly deployed because it is compact, making it transportable by air or sea; and designed for quick assembly and startup testing with full functionality shortly after arrival. The MPF Lite Project replaced the aging, difficult to transport, and overly burdensome glovebox and supporting modules with new technologies for gloveboxes and glovebox facility modules. This reduced the existing glovebox facility portion of the MPF by six modules while effectively tripling the process throughput. This project also eliminated approximately $400K in refurbishment costs while simultaneously reducing transportation constraints. The scope of the project included a design build concept to build a glovebox facility and supporting system modules utilizing industry experts in both the field of glovebox manufacturing and ISO modular shipping container design. The MPF Lite project brought together two separate companies, one with expertise in the design and fabrication of nuclear gloveboxes and the other with expertise in the design and fabrication of modular shipping Container facilities. Partnering these two industrial specialty companies together in a design/ build contract allowed the SRNL MPF team to utilize the best and most up to date technologies to meet all the project goals, including having the modules ready for a 2020 deployment exercise in the United Kingdom.
Year
2020
Abstract