Destruction of 780,000 chemical munitions stockpiled in Colorado begins
Over the years, the basic operation of EDS has remained the same. At its core is a leak-tight vessel in which munitions are placed. An explosive shaped charge opens the metal shell, exposing the chemical agent and burster, a small explosive that disperses the agent.
The burster explodes or deflagrates safely inside the vessel. A reagent is then pumped into the chamber to neutralize the chemical agent. The chamber is heated and turned to mix the chemicals and speed the reaction.
Stockpile munitions easier to process
The new EDS, called the Phase Two Retrofit (P2R), incorporates many of the P2P improvements along with a separate boiler/chiller container and larger pipes and pumps to transfer fluids more quickly. Working with stockpile munitions also simplifies the explosion process.
“Nonstockpile munitions are discovered in strange conditions, tangled in tree roots or covered with barnacles. Badly corroded munitions are often stabilized with plaster of Paris and then wrapped in plastic before processing. Consequently, the EDS was designed to be adaptable and flexible,” explained Haroldsen.
Stockpile munitions, even problematic ones, are quite uniform, however. “So we need less flexibility in the design and we can use the shaped-charge explosives more effectively to cut the munitions,” said Haroldsen.
At the pilot plant, EDS will process six munitions a day, starting with 560 reject munitions already set aside. ACWA expects EDS to destroy about 1,300 munitions over the five-year operation, including reject munitions.
Improvements under way to vapor monitoring
In collaboration with Defiant Technologies, the EDS team also is working on an in-situ vapor monitoring system, which is an offshoot of Sandia’s MicroChemLab gas phase system. To ensure the EDS vessel is safe to open following operation, a vapor sample must be collected and analyzed. An in-situ monitoring system would draw a sample from inside the vessel, eliminating the collection step and saving about forty-five minutes.
The vapor monitoring system also can monitor for multiple agents simultaneously, so it could be used to monitor the environmental enclosure around EDS or at a munition recovery site. That monitoring is currently being done with specialized gas chromatographs, which are reliable but can only check for one agent at a time.
“The ability to monitor for multiple agents with a single system would further simplify operations,” said Haroldsen.
The release notes that the two EDS units will spend several years at PCAPP. Meanwhile, the Army continues to use the EDS system to destroy recovered chemical munitions. In February, an EDS unit was sent to Schofield Barracks, a U.S. Army installation on Oahu, Hawaii, and another is set to go to the Tooele Army Depot in eastern Utah later this year.
