• About
    • About Us
    • What We Cover
  • Advertise
    • Advertise
    • Our Advertisers
  • Contact
  • Donate
  • Send News
  • Subscribe

Oak Ridge Today

  • Home
  • Sign in
  • News
    • Business
    • Community
    • Education
    • Government
    • Health
    • Police and Fire
    • U.S. Department of Energy
    • Weather
  • Sports
    • High School
    • Middle School
    • Recreation
    • Rowing
    • Youth
  • Entertainment
    • Arts
    • Dancing
    • Movies
    • Music
    • Television
    • Theater
  • Premium Content
  • Obituaries
  • Classifieds

 

Equipment used in uranium casting falls from Y-12 furnace

Posted at 11:34 am May 21, 2013
By John Huotari Leave a Comment

Equipment and materials used in uranium casting operations at the Y-12 National Security Complex fell several feet from a furnace in Building 9212 last month after someone accidentally bumped a control lever, a federal safety board said in a recently released report.

The lever controls the movement of what is known as the stack assembly, which includes a crucible, mold, and uranium “charge.”

The loaded stack assembly had recently been cast, and it fell several feet from the body of an induction furnace to the base of the furnace, where loading and unloading occur, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board said in a report for the week ending April 19.

“Normally, operators watch carefully while the stack assembly is being lowered to ensure that it does not catch on the furnace interior and tip over,” the DNFSB report said. “However, in this instance, the lever that controls the movement of the stack assembly was inadvertently bumped into the down position during the casting run. This caused the stack assembly to be lowered without any operator oversight, catch on the furnace interior, and fall.”

The report said operators gathered and removed the spilled parts under the direction of a criticality safety engineer. While doing so, they noticed that someone had unintentionally moved the control lever for a different furnace to the up position.

“The stack assembly in this furnace had also completed its casting run and, in accordance with criticality safety requirements, operators had installed a cover on the crucible to prevent water intrusion,” the DNFSB report said. “This cover, which is not designed to be present while the stack assembly is in the raised position, damaged the brick lining of the furnace.”

It said production managers are considering corrective actions to prevent unintentional changes to the positions of the levers that control movements of the stack assemblies.

Afterward, criticality safety engineers questioned whether safety evaluations address a scenario in which a loaded stack assembly falls and damages a fluid line, resulting in the entire mass of fissile material collecting in an uncontrolled configuration at the base of the furnace while it is being inundated with hydraulic fluid, the report said.

All induction furnace casting operations were then paused while that question was resolved, although it wasn’t immediately clear Tuesday if the operations are still stopped.

There was a separate issue with casting reported by the DNFSB in an April 12 report.

Site representatives William Linzau and Rory Rauch said operators were running a production microwave for casting in Building 9212 when the “power supply to one of the magnetrons (and, in turn, the system temperature) continued to increase without any operator input.

“The operators attempted to correct the condition (as allowed per procedure) by decreasing the power set point using the touch screen that provides the human/machine interface for the furnace,” the report said. “The power decreased in response to these commands, but would begin to increase again when operator input ceased. The operators eventually removed the power supply to the magnetrons using the emergency stop button and notified their supervisor, who immediately suspended work.”

The shift manager consulted with production management and engineering and gave the operators direction to re-enter the procedure and provided the specific steps needed to place the caster in a safe and stable configuration.

“The responsible instrumentation and control engineer, after recreating this condition in a simulated environment, has preliminarily concluded that the condition resulted from a communication loss between the touch screen and magnetron controller,” the report said.

Y-12 plans to correct this condition and two others that could be affected by the same communication loss before running the production microwave caster again, the report said.

“The production microwave caster contains a credited design feature that prevents the charge from reaching temperatures that could result in a safety consequence to the worker,” it said.

Filed Under: Top Stories, Y-12 National Security Complex Tagged With: Building 9212, control lever, criticality safety engineer, crucible, Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, DNFSB, induction furnace, magnetrons, mold, operators, production microwave, Rory Rauch, stack assembly, uranium casting, uranium charge, William Linzau, Y-12 National Security Complex

Advertisements

 


Join the club!

If you appreciate our work, please consider subscribing. Besides helping us, your subscription will give you access to our premium content.

Some of our stories are free, brought to you by Oak Ridge Today with help from our members—advertisers, subscribers, and sponsors.

But some are premium content, available only to members. Those are in-depth, investigative, or exclusive stories that are available only on Oak Ridge Today. They generally require significant time to report, write, and publish.

You can subscribe for as little as $5 per month.

You can read more about your options here.

We currently offer five primary subscription options to readers, and they include benefits.

Basic

  • Basic monthly subscription ($5 per month)—access premium content
  • Basic annual subscription ($60 per year)—access premium content

Pro

  • Pro monthly subscription ($10 per month)—access premium content, get breaking news emails first, and submit one press release or public service announcement per month
  • Pro annual subscription ($100 per year)—save $20 per year, access premium content, get breaking news emails first, and submit one press release or public service announcement per month

Temporary

  • Temporary access ($3 per week for two weeks)

We also have advanced subscription options. You can see them here.

We also accept donations. You can donate here.

If you prefer to send a check for a subscription or donation, you may do so by mailing one to:

Oak Ridge Today
P.O. Box 6064
Oak Ridge, TN 37831

Thank you for your consideration and for reading Oak Ridge Today. We appreciate your support.

Commenting Guidelines

We welcome comments, but we ask you to follow a few guidelines:

1) Please use your real name, including last name. Please also use a valid e-mail address.
2) Be civil. Don't insult others, attack their character, or get personal.
3) Stick to the issues.
4) No profanity.
5) Keep your comments to a reasonable length and to a reasonable number per article.

We reserve the right to remove any comments that violate these guidelines. Comments held for review, usually from those posting for the first time, may not post if they violate these guidelines. Thank you for your patience and understanding. Thank you also for reading Oak Ridge Today and for participating in the discussion.

More information is available here.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Posts

  • Presentation: Laws & children of different sexual identities
  • CNC Bootcamp returns to Oak Ridge High School this spring
  • Roane State Dental Clinic offering free cleanings for kids
  • UCOR announces management change
  • Y-12 honored with DOE sustainability partnership award
  • Trapuzzano receives Eugene L. Joyce Achievement Award
  • Obituaries: Jan. 28-Feb. 1, 2023
  • Basketball: Wildcats beat West in rematch
  • Basketball: Lady Wildcats undefeated in district
  • Obituaries: Jan. 23-27, 2023

Search Oak Ridge Today

About Us

About Oak Ridge Today
What We Cover

How To

Advertise
Subscribe

Contact Us

Contact Oak Ridge Today

Copyright © 2023 Oak Ridge Today