PROCESS’ engineers address the full spectrum of process engineering services over the system life cycle of a process. Examples of representative projects by design phase follow:
Process Design Definition Projects
Detailed Process Design Projects
Operational Planning and Startup Projects
Operation Support & Decommissioning Projects
Process Design Definition Projects
- Updated mission analysis report for management of radioactive hazardous wastes
- Updated requirements defined in sub-system specifications
- Performed key technical and management lead roles for the conceptual and preliminary design of a comprehensive uranium processing facility
- Led preliminary process design for targeted utilities at a research facility, including cooling water, helium, nitrogen and vacuum, with particular emphasis on design associated with the facility cooling water loops
- Reviewed a thorium extraction process design focusing on unit operations for sizing, extraction system removal efficiencies, scale-up of laboratory data, process control concepts, product recovery, and materials of construction
- Prepared an engineering evaluation of a proposed CERCLA remedial action effort to transfer highly radioactive spent fuel from tanks in a below-grade vault to canisters located in an adjacent hot cell
- Performed a high level programmatic review of a draft Legacy Material Disposition Initiative (LMDI) Completion Strategy document
- Reviewed the conceptual design of a facility to process (blend) highly enriched uranium with depleted uranium for the purposes of long-term critically safe storage
- Prepared a pre-conceptual design study for spent fuel recycling for use in PEIS preparation
- Used process simulation software to evaluate a proposed scrubber design for removing acid gases and radioactive iodine from a waste vitrification system off gas stream.
Detailed Process Design Projects
- Provided process design support for a remotely operated liquid radioactive waste storage system (WSS) facility
- Matured PFDs and developed P&IDs for an integrated uranium recovery facility
- Utilized CHEMCAD commercial process simulation software to prepare mass and energy balances for uranium processes and to evaluate process alternatives
- Supported the development of process models using ExtendTM, a commercial discrete event process simulation software; and IDEASTM, a commercial non-steady state process simulation software program to evaluate reliability, availability, and maintainability (RAM) impacts on equipment and tank quantities and to and streamline the design
- Facilitated the expansion of a commercially operated chemical facility that produces reactor-grade nuclear fuel by designing modifications to their industrial wastewater treatment facility
- Executed a complete process design for a new batch process for recovering reactor-grade uranium from various stockpiled uranium compound feedstocks
- Prepared System Design Descriptions (SDDs) for multiple process systems for non-reactor nuclear facilities
- Prepared structures, systems, and component (SSC) grading worksheets (GWS) to assign a safety significance rating to all equipment as part of a detail design project for a Category II nuclear facility design.
Operational Planning and Startup Projects
- Functioned as both lead system engineers and as technical support in the successful restart of an enriched uranium operation, implementing a new safety basis and Conduct of Operations management program
- Provided technical support for the preparation of operational technical baseline documentation for multiple Category II nuclear facilities
- Supported Project Management through construction phase oversight, assisting in the protection of the process technical baseline, the resolution of day-to-day construction issues, and tracking the construction schedule at a fundamental research project
- Prepared system procedures for test and checkout, startup, normal & abnormal operation, and shutdown on nuclear and non-nuclear processes
- Performed supporting design analysis: process and vent line sizing; pressure relief device load and sizing calculations
- Performed on-site management of pilot tests for filtering and drying a biological sludge feed stream to a thermal waste treatment system.
Operation Support & Decommissioning Projects
- Performed field walk downs to assess and correct chemical and nuclear hazards
- Provided a lead role in the development and implementation of decommissioning procedures at a depleted uranium processing facility under CERCLA
- Developed flowsheets and descriptions of existing equipment configurations for the shutdown of a DUF6 waste residue handling system
- Prepared and implemented a D&D work strategy to treat mixed waste residues, including an aqueous solution of HF
- Developed a comprehensive computer process simulation model for the purposes of predicting system operating temperatures, flow rates, stream compositions, utilities usage rates, and stack emissions (including metals and radionuclides) for various mixed waste incinerator feed rates and compositions.
Environmental / Waste Management Projects
- Provided process engineering support for a project designed to reduce the environmental liability of contaminated buildings, groundwater and soil at two government controlled sites
- Utilized simulation software to evaluate the performance of radioactive scrubber equipment under various scenarios to predict compliance with regulatory requirements
- Provided high level programmatic reviews of waste handling and disposal priorities for hazardous and mixed solid residues
- Coordinated environmental site assessments of nuclear construction/demolition activities
- Provided detailed waste matrix evaluations for a thermal desorption system at a hazardous and mixed waste processing facility
- Evaluated existing data for a low-level waste landfill for the hydraulic and chemical compositions of its leachate and contact water in anticipation of the facility possibly receiving listed RCRA waste for disposal in the future
- Considered the technical alternatives for treating a groundwater stream contaminated with hexavalent chromium.
Safety Basis Development / Implementation
- Developed the technical baseline of nuclear processes
- Prepared process and vent line sizing, pressure relief device load and sizing calculations
- Facilitated process hazards analysis (PHA) for individual systems and an entire facility where the processes are inter-related
- Provided review, revisions, and updates of system design documentation for existing Category II nuclear production facilities
- Represented the process engineering discipline on System PHAs
- Performed air dispersion calculations for UF6 and HF for a uranium enrichment plant Integrated Safety Analysis (ISA)
- Performed formal process engineering calculations for credible accident scenarios supporting Safety Analyses Report (SAR) and ISA development for multiple nuclear and non-nuclear processes.