Y-12 Blog
From left to right: CNS Construction Superintendent Paul Champ; SIS Federal Project Director Don Peters; DOE Under Secretary for Nuclear Security and NNSA Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty; UPF Federal Project Director Dale Christenson; UPF Contracting Officer Michael Bocskovits; and USACE Project Manager Joe Duncan.
The Uranium Processing Facility Project Site Infrastructure and Services Subproject team was recently honored with the 2018 Department of Energy Project Management Achievement Award.
SIS, UPF’s second of seven subprojects, was completed two months ahead of schedule and $18M under budget in February 2018.
SIS included the 65,000 square foot Construction Support Building which provides office space for more than 300 UPF Project personnel and is the Y-12 National Security Complex’s first Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Gold building.
SIS also included the fully automated, continuous mix concrete batch plant designed to produce 300 cubic yards of concrete per hour. The batch plant and five concrete trucks are on site and dedicated solely to UPF, providing construction schedule flexibility and immediate response to quality issues.
Other SIS deliverables included building demolition, utility work, site grading and installation of new erosion protection and security features.
To execute the work, NNSA employed an integrated acquisition and project management strategy, including partnerships with U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Consolidated Nuclear Security, LLC. These partnerships capitalized on USACE’s expertise in non-nuclear construction and fixed-price contracting and CNS’s familiarity with the existing Y-12 site infrastructure and mission. Both CNS and USACE used fixed unit rate subcontracts to execute the majority of the work.
“I am very proud of our how well USACE and CNS worked together to safely deliver SIS ahead of schedule and under budget,” said SIS Federal Project Director Don Peters. “Our unique partnership provided the best value to the government and to American taxpayers. I am honored that DOE recognized our success with this prestigious award.”
Members of the SIS team were presented the award by DOE Under Secretary for Nuclear Security and National Nuclear Security Administration Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty at the DOE Project Management Conference held in Washington, DC.
The first vertical wall for the Main Process Building (MPB) has been placed. The wall is 27 feet tall and required 196 cubic yards of concrete.
The first vertical wall for the Main Process Building at the Uranium Processing Facility has been placed. Because this wall is part of a nuclear facility, the 196 cubic yards of concrete needed for this placement is high quality, the documentation is more thorough, and there are more rigorous evaluations.
“It’s great to see MPB go vertical,” said MPB Area Manager Matt Nuckols. “The team has worked tirelessly to transition from base and topping slabs to the rebar and formwork intensive walls. It’s exciting to see the building take shape.”
To build the 27-foot-tall wall, the outside rebar curtain layer was joined by an inside layer. Formwork was placed outside the curtains and then the concrete placed. The concrete was left to cure, or harden, for five days before the forms were removed.
Ironworkers, carpenters, and cement finishers will continue this process for the remaining 27 vertical wall sections for the MPB first floor, starting near the corners and building west.
Concrete crews finish the base slab for the Salvage and Accountability Building. Placement of the topping slabs is underway.
The Uranium Processing Facility Project team achieved a key milestone by completing the base slabs for the three main buildings: the Mechanical Electrical Building, the Main Process Building, and most recently, the Salvage and Accountability Building. A total of 37,000 cubic yards of concrete was required for the structural base slabs. That’s enough concrete to cover a football field nearly 24 feet deep, or as tall as a two-story building.
“Achieving this milestone was the result of a lot of hard work from everyone on the team,” said SAB Deputy Area Lead Randy Holman. “They were focused on performing safely, doing it right the first time, and achieving the project milestones. With the completion of the base slabs, the team has positioned itself for future success.”
Work at the SAB continues with installation of the topping slabs underway and structural steel erection beginning in May.
The MPB base slab was completed in February, and work continues with placement of rebar curtains.
The MEB base slab was completed in July 2018. MEB is forecast to be “in the dry” in May.
“From conception to planning to execution to maintenance to decommissioning of a system or product, systems engineering helps keep track of all the moving pieces,” said Y-12’s Mike Sand, who recently earned his master’s degree in the systems engineering development program jointly sponsored by Consolidated Nuclear Security and the University of Tennessee.
Like many workers today, Mike Sand was asked to do more with less. In his 15 years as a chemist at the Y-12 National Security Complex, he saw the classical chemistry lab staff shrink by more than half, his workload grow, and aging instrumentation increasingly break down. He knew there had to be a better way. That’s when opportunity knocked.
In 2016, Sand joined more than a dozen other Y-12 employees in pursuing a University of Tennessee master’s degree in industrial engineering with a concentration in systems.
“I wanted to improve how things functioned in the lab,” Sand said. “This program was an opportunity to think critically, problem-solve, consider work flow, and learn how to optimize tasks, time and processes. I jumped at the opportunity.”
The two-year program centers on teaching the big-picture approach to a system and how to integrate customer requirements and all the technical details from start to finish. Jointly sponsored by UT and Consolidated Nuclear Security, the contractor that operates Y-12 in Tennessee and Pantex in Texas for the National Nuclear Security Administration, the courses bolster systems engineering practices and practitioners at both federal sites.
“At CNS, we’re focusing on four fundamental uses of systems engineering: in weapons, infrastructure upgrades, wholly new systems, and technology transition,” said Y-12’s Mark Cook, senior director of Systems Engineering & Architecture. “Our approach to all four is the same. We consider not only the subject system but also all the interconnected systems, dependencies and everyone who has to work with it throughout the life cycle.”
The UT/CNS program also serves to further develop employee skills to better match organization needs. “The underlying principle of this program is transferrable learning,” said Dr. Rupy Sawhney, executive director of UT’s Center for Advanced Systems Research and Education.
UT and CNS customized the master’s program to ensure maximum benefit to Y-12, Pantex and students alike. UT professors and Y-12 personnel teach courses in Oak Ridge and Amarillo, and the program has invested in audiovisual equipment for distance learning. UT teaching assistants help students after classes and even on weekends. Students design their capstone projects around a Y-12 or Pantex project that correlates to an NNSA mission need.
“This has never been about teaching a course,” Sawhney said. “It’s about building up the workforce. Our partnership with CNS through this program is preparing the workforce to meet NNSA mission needs today and the challenges of tomorrow.”
Cook agrees. “The program is proving successful in helping CNS meet our needs with its customization, focus and support from the university,” he said. “It seems like a natural fit to see if this model can help with workforce development for others in the Nuclear Security Enterprise.”
To achieve his master’s, Sand attended classes once a week on his own time while continuing to work at Y-12. In addition to completing 33 credit hours, he performed a capstone project aimed at increasing the chemistry lab’s functionality, reliability, turnaround times and productivity.
“In the classical chemistry lab, I acted as a catalyst for change,” Sand said. “Through the coursework, I started a conversation on improving methodology, proving-in new technology and pursuing experimental work.”
Since earning his master’s, he’s transitioned to a new job in Cook’s Systems Engineering group. “Getting the degree pushed me outside my comfort zone but allowed me to grow both professionally and personally,” he said. “After putting in so much effort, it was worth it for my two little girls to watch me walk across that stage in my cap and gown.
“I want them to understand the importance of education, having a thirst for knowledge and continuous learning, and the benefits of pushing yourself beyond complacency,” he said.
Since 2011, more than 50 Y-12 and Pantex employees have participated in the UT systems engineering graduate program.
Y-12 has worked with isotopes for many decades. Today, Y-12 supports the development of a domestic supply of molybdenum-99, the most widely used medical isotope in the world.
Y-12’s long-standing expertise with isotopes is supporting an effort to establish a reliable supply of molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) from low-enriched uranium. Mo-99 is a key isotope in the completion of approximately 40,000 medical procedures in the United States each day. Until recently, the isotope was supplied solely by foreign vendors, some of whom use highly enriched uranium (HEU) in the production process.
As part of its mission to minimize the use of HEU, NNSA’s Office of Material Management and Minimization was tasked to lead the Mo-99 Program. It is coordinating the use of technical expertise from Y-12 National Security Complex and the National Labs, on a non proprietary basis, to existing and potential Mo 99 producers who seek assistance to convert their Mo 99 production processes to use low enriched uranium or to develop processes that don’t use uranium at all.
The decay product of Mo 99, technetium-99m, is used to diagnose heart disease and cancer, to study organ structure and function, and to perform other important medical applications. For example, patients undergoing a common procedure — the cardiac “stress test” — likely have benefited from technetium-99m.
NNSA is working with commercial partners to accelerate the establishment of a reliable supply of Mo-99 made in the United States, produced without HEU through cooperative agreements between NNSA and U.S. commercial partners. In February, Secretary of Energy Rick Perry announced that four companies had been selected to begin negotiations for potential new cost-sharing agreements.
“Y-12 does not provide exclusive assistance to any one company; rather, we work with non-disclosure agreements and contracts to provide expertise and assistance to multiple companies,” said Y-12’s Hollie Longmire of Global Security and Strategic Partnerships. “Y-12 provides technical expertise in uranium processing, develops prototype targets, and optimizes the process.”