Air assessment of open burning at Radford Army Ammunition Plant

This project evaluates the characteristics of the open burning of NOSIH AA-2 sheet waste propellant at the Radford Army Ammunition Plant. The project considers the plume and burn characteristics, the removal of nitroglycerin from the waste, the emission of metals into the air, and the modeling of pollutant emissions from open burning.

The plumes generated from open burning fall well below the mixing heights. By burning at 2:30 PM and under Army regulations, the risk of inversions is essentially eliminated. The meteorological conditions influence the duration of the burns, and a dimensionless parameter is developed in this study to correlate the conditions to the burn duration.

Over 99 percent of the lead and copper in the propellant waste emits to the atmosphere. The removal efficiency of nitroglycerin in the propellant by open burning exceeds 99.9999 percent.

A worst-case analysis is conducted using the Trinity INPUFF™ model. Based on this conservative estimate, the concentrations of lead, copper, and NO_x compounds do not exceed the Short-Term Exposure Limits. However, the analysis exposes limitations in the model in the plume height calculations and the sampling time method.