EM team members are priming three support facilities at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) for teardown in the near future.
Office of Environmental Management
March 5, 2024
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An aerial view of a filter house, fan house and 200-foot-tall exhaust stack that provided support to the Graphite Reactor, which is located about 100 feet away from these facilities.
OAK RIDGE, Tenn. — EM team members are priming three support facilities at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) for teardown in the near future.
Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM) cleanup contractor UCOR is deactivating the Graphite Reactor ancillary facilities. The buildings include the filter house, or Building 3002, fan house, or Building 3003, and exhaust stack, or Building 3018. They were previously used to filter and release exhaust from Graphite Reactor operations.
Their removal will continue OREM’s transformation of ORNL’s central campus, eliminate hazards and enhance visitor access to a historic landmark.
The oldest reactor in the world, the Graphite Reactor was designated a historic landmark in 1966 and is a key component of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park. It was the first facility built at ORNL during the Manhattan Project, and it will remain for visitors to learn about the history of the site.
Crews drill to open access to an air duct that connects a fan house to an adjacent stack to perform required characterization work.
Constructed in 1948, the filter house filtered air from the air‐cooled Graphite Reactor prior to exhaust through the fan house and adjacent stack. Building 3003 housed the fan room, providing ventilation for the reactor and exhausting to the 200-foot-tall stack, which dates to 1943.
Maneuvering equipment to support deactivation has been challenging. The ancillary facilities are located on a hill approximately 100 feet from the reactor and within 20 feet of a fence line for a neighboring operational facility.
Much of the work throughout last year involved crews sampling the buildings and ducts. This characterization work supports future open-air demolition of the facilities.
Ready access was not available to Building 3002, so crews created an access door to enter and conduct sampling. Crews also drilled access into a duct connecting Building 3002 and Building 3003, enabling sampling crews to also initiate characterization of this area.
Teams inside a filter house bag HEPA filters for disposal. The filters were used to capture contamination when the building was in use.
Once crews had access inside Building 3002, they conducted deactivation activities, including the removal of numerous filters. They took out HEPA filters and hundreds of contaminated rock wool filters that were originally thought to be removed.
With the filters out, employees are preparing to decontaminate Building 3002’s interior. That process includes vacuuming and using a solution for overall decontamination and again for targeted “hot spot” decontamination. The final step involves applying a fixative to prevent the spread of contamination during demolition.
Additionally, the team has started planning to place compressive low-strength material, which is a cement-like substance, in a duct between the Graphite Reactor and Building 3002 to isolate the facilities from each other prior to demolition.
The upcoming work moves the facilities closer to demolition, planned for next year.
-Contributor: Carol Hendrycks
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