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Design Engineer Jobs Cumbria - Sellafield Projects and OperationsWindscale Vitrification Plant (WVP) Introduction Nuclear fuel reprocessing has lead to a high level of engineering jobs in cumbria and specifically project engineering jobs at sellafield. It involves dissolving 'spent' fuel in acid. The uranium, plutonium and waste, are then separated from each other using a chemical process. Vitrification The highly radioactive waste produced is purified before being incorporated into solid glass blocks using a process called vitrification. The liquid is evaporated into granules which are mixed with small pieces of glass, and heated inside a melter to over 1150 degrees centigrade. Storage This mixture is then poured into stainless steel containers and allowed to cool. The containers are then welded shut, their outsides decontaminated and then stored in an air cooled purpose built storage facility. The storage consists of 800 vertical storage tubes, each capable of holding ten containers. The total storage capacity is 8,000 containers (a total of 2,280 containers have been stored during the first ten years of operation). This process reduces the volume of highly active waste to one third of its original volume, which is testimony to the skills of the people that have filled these project and senior engineering vacancies in cumbria and specifically vacancies at sellafield. Radioactive waste from reprocessing is categorised as high, intermediate and low-level, according to the amount of radiation they emit. This waste material will lose its radioactivity naturally and would normally be stored for up to 50 years ensuring the continual demand for project engineers in cumbria and indeed the creation of mechanical and electrical engineering jobs in cumbria. The time it takes for a radioactive substance to halve its level of radioactivity is called its half-life. The Windscale Vitrification Plant The Windscale vitrification plant was opened in 1991, the creation of engineering jobs in cumbria and the boost that these engineering vacancies give to the local economy was very welcome. The plant has three process lines and is based on the French AVM procedure. At the heart of the plant is the inductively heated melting furnace, in which the calcined waste is merged with glass frit (glass beads of 1 to 2 mm in diameter). This vitrification process ensures the safe storage of waste in the UK for the middle to long term.
Contact
Tel +44 (0) 1229 719655 or +44 (0) 1229 777697 or visit our website at You can also browse more jobs and upload your CV at Engineering Jobs Cumbria.
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