By Capt Antonio Gallop
AFIT, Education with Industry Fellow – Sandia National Laboratories
 

AFIT EWI Fellow Capt Antonio Gallop at the SRS Entrance. (Photo courtesy of Mark Meyer)

AIKEN, SC – Air Force Institute of Technology Education with Industry (EWI) Fellow, Capt Antonio Gallop, assigned to Sandia National Laboratories’ New Mexico division, traveled to the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Savannah River Site in Aiken, SC 20-25 October to provide training on the Nuclear Weapons (NW) complex and how it interfaces with the DoD. In addition to this training, discussions with engineers, inspectors, managers and personnel located at the site, along with an All-Hands Call were held for the approximately 450 members of the Tritium Enterprise on a variety of DoD platforms along with a question and answer session to end the day.

The nuclear deterrence mission encompasses a plethora of entities from the DoD and the DOE to form a team that plays a vital role in our Nation’s defense. Much like the Air Force and Navy within the DoD, the DOE utilizes the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to execute nuclear operations. Savannah River plays a vital role as the sole Tritium Production Agency in the NW complex.

Upon arrival, Capt Gallop was shown the process of operations from when cargo is transported from the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Watts Bar Reactor into the delivery bay of the Tritium Extraction Facility (TEF), hoisted overhead and then loaded into its containment vessel. From there, the Tritium Producing Burnable Absorber Rods (TPBARs) have its gases extracted, purified, mixed to the required specification, weapon dependent, and then transferred to fill its gas reservoirs. Finally, each reservoir is inspected by quality control teams, packaged, sealed and then shipped to customers across the DoD.
 

Tritium Extraction Facility (Photo courtesy of SRS)

The Savannah River site is managed through DOE-EM with NNSA as a tenant, as such, the workload is broken into three parts: 64 percent Environmental Management (EM), 29 percent National Nuclear Security Administration, and 7 percent Work for Others. While there, Capt Gallop was able to talk to EM engineers to discuss how the site manages, stabilizes and disposes of nuclear materials, along with solid, liquid, and transuranic and spent fuel management. He was able to see H-canyon, the only operating production-scale, nuclear chemical separations facility and some of the equipment utilized to execute its day-to-day mission.

The trip was extremely beneficial to understand the pivotal role that Savannah River plays in the nuclear enterprise, in addition to discussions to help explain the DoD’s role as a customer, and what considerations take place in executing operational and logistical requirements.