One thousand drums crushed by supercompactor
Dounreay nuclear site has reached a significant milestone following commissioning of the new supercompactor at the Waste Receipt Assay Characterisation and Supercompaction facility (WRACS).
Managing Director, Phil Craig and NDA Head of Programme, Nigel Lowe are pictured congratulating the WRACS team on completing over 1000 drums.
The facility has now crushed its 1000th drum of low level waste since the plant’s re-start in July.
The plant broke down in July 2011 when a stress fracture in one of the main support columns in the supercompactor occurred.
Procuring and installing a replacement supercompactor was challenging and took longer than DSRL initially predicted. Other operations, including the characterising/assaying of drums of low level waste, continued during the shutdown and these were stored awaiting the new supercompactor.
The backlog of over 16,000 drums is expected to be complete by summer 2016.
The WRACS facility receives 200 litre drums of solid low level waste. The contents of each drum are checked and the drum assayed prior to it being crushed by the supercompactor.
The crushed drums known as pucks are then placed into half height ISO containers ready for grouting and disposal in the low level waste vault.