Minimizing Glovebox Glove Breaches, Part III: Deriving Service Lifetimes

At the Los Alamos Plutonium Facility, various isotopes of plutonium along with other actinides are handled in a glove box environment. Weapons-grade plutonium consists mainly in Pu-239. Pu-238 is another isotope used for heat sources. The Pu-238 is more aggressive regarding gloves due to its higher alpha-emitting characteristic (~300 times more active than Pu-239), which modifies the change-out intervals for gloves. Optimization of the change-out intervals for gloves is fundamental since Nuclear Materials Technology (NMT) Division generates approximately 4 m 3 /yr of TRU waste from the disposal of glovebox gloves. To reduce the number of glovebox glove failures, the NMT Division proactively investigates processes and procedures that minimize glove failures. Aging studies have been conducted that correlate changes in mechanical (physical) properties with degradation chemistry. This present work derives glovebox glove change intervals based on mechanical data of thermally aged Hypalon ® , and Butasol ® glove samples. Information from this study represent an important baseline in gauging the acceptable standards for polymeric gloves used in a laboratory glovebox environment and will be used later to account for possible presence of dose-rate or synergistic effects in “combined-environment.” In addition, excursions of contaminants into the operator’s breathing zone and excess exposure to the radiological sources associated with unplanned breaches in the glovebox are reduced.