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UPF: Y-12’s largest planned construction
If the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA’s) future lies in a smaller, more efficient Nuclear Weapons Complex (NWC) that can respond to changing national and global security challenges, where does Y‑12’s largest planned construction project fit in?
Central themes for NNSA’s 2030 vision are consolidation, modernization and responsiveness. The future nuclear weapons production complex will be smaller than today’s distributed geographically and modernized with manufacturing, production, assembly and disassembly facilities and equipment employing 21st century technologies. For the Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) to fit into NNSA’s vision, it will thoroughly transform the physical environment in which activities will be performed, the tools that will be used and the way it conducts its mission.
The project team
After years of planning, the UPF project is off the starting block and running with experienced personnel in key positions who have substantial engineering-procurement-construction experience on large, complex projects. At the helm as program manager is John Howanitz, a 25-year Bechtel employee and former assistant general manager for Nevada Test Site Operations. Working with him is a leadership group of more than 50 experts with extensive nuclear and large-project experience using industry-proven and robust systems, processes, procedures, and integrated automation and software tools for project execution.
Consolidation
Under the current conceptual plans, the UPF project significantly shrinks Y‑12’s security footprint and reduces the square footage for all Y‑12 facilities by nearly half. Designed and constructed for health, safety, security and operations efficiency, UPF will be a modern facility built to today’s codes and standards, seismically qualified, and reliant on engineered controls rather than administrative controls — all to reduce risk. “The project will accelerate safety and security analysis so that the preliminary design engineering effort can integrate the appropriate technical considerations,” Howanitz said. “By doing this, the project will avoid many costly and difficult retrofit issues later during the detailed design and construction phases.
Modernization
A key focus of the project is to provide substantial security, safety and productivity benefits by taking advantage of advanced manufacturing tools and processes undergoing development and testing. Across Y‑12, the Readiness Campaigns, Directed Stockpile Work, and Readiness in Technical Base and Facilities programs have already deployed more than $40 million in new machine tools and other technologies and are planning another $20 million-plus investment over the next 15 years. The results of much of this investment will be used in UPF. “The technology selection strategy that is currently well under way will ensure that new opportunities and ideas are deployed and tested in our existing manufacturing infrastructure before they are selected as the preferred UPF process,” Vaughn Lotspeich explained. “By doing this, we will be assured that we have proven solutions to meet both our commitments and our customer’s requirements.
Responsiveness
UPF and its companion — the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility — have been singled out to become the nation’s Uranium Center of Excellence in the Complex 2030 vision. From using the latest 3‑D modeling to the “out-of-the-box” ideas gained from other large construction efforts across the U.S. and overseas, UPF is being designed with enhanced flexibility. Equipment will be phased in and out of available and reserved floor space as processing needs change over time. And, as all these pieces come together, “it all adds up not only to a new building, but a new way of doing our mission here at Y‑12,” Howanitz said.