Status of decommissioning of the Plutonium Fuel Fabrication Facility and R&Ds of dismantling technologies for gloveboxes

Kimura, Yasuhisa ; Hirano, Hiroshi; Watahiki, Masatoshi ; Kuba, Meiji ; Ishikawa, Shinichiro

The Plutonium Fuel Fabrication Facility (PFFF) of the Japan Atomic Energy Agency is now in its decommissioning phase. In the PFFF, terminated gloveboxes have been dismantled. Gloveboxes to be dismantled are surrounded by a plastic enclosure to prevent contamination from being spread into process room. Dismantling operations for gloveboxes are performed manually by workers, each wearing an air-feed suit. However, the mental and physical loads placed on workers wearing the air-feed suits are intensively high. Therefore, R&Ds on new dismantling technologies including utilization of heavy machines covered with plastic enclosure for anti-contamination have been started to reduce the potential risks associated with workers and decommissioning costs. In this paper, the status of decommissioning of the PFFF and the overview of developed dismantling technologies for -tight gloveboxes are described.