Year
2002
Abstract
May 11, 2001 saw cessation of enrichment operations at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PORTS) located near Piketon, Ohio. The facility is in the process of being placed in a cold standby mode by the United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC). In order to meet the cold standby requirements set forth by the Department of Energy (DOE) USEC personnel are striving to remove deposits of UF6 and UO2F2 for turnover of equipment and facilities and also to assure a criticality accident does not occur. Methods and procedures were developed in order to locate and quantify the deposits in the LEU cascade. Approximately 15,000 Nondestructive Assay (NDA) measurements were required on process components (e.g., compressors, converters, coolers, valves, and piping). These measurements were accomplished over a period of five months by a team of dedicated engineers and technicians. The Applied Nuclear Technology (ANT) group, which is responsible for the NDA measurements at PORTS, provided oversight of this project. The project did not lend itself to conventional NDA measurements because the majority of the equipment is, and will remain, in-situ until the plant is restarted or decontamination and decommissioning (D&D) activities begin. Methods of analysis that consider the contribution of surrounding equipment to the item being measured were needed. Software was developed to aid in this analysis. The software also provides a means to store and access the vast amount of data generated. This paper discusses the NDA techniques employed to gather the data, analyze the results, and other related issues of the measurement campaign.