Annual report on operation, utilization and technical development of Hot Laboratories; From April 1, 2004 to March 31, 2005

Department of Hot Laboratories

This is an annual report in 2004 fiscal year that describes activities of the Reactor Fuel Examination Facility (RFEF), the Waste Safety Testing Facility (WASTEF), and the Research Hot Laboratory (RHL) in the Department of Hot laboratories. In RFEF, BWR fuel rods were withdrawn from a fuel assembly irradiated for 5 cycles in the Fukushima-2 Nuclear Power Station Unit-1 and PIEs including nondestructive examination of those rods were carried out. In WASTEF, Slow Strain Rate Tests for detecting the susceptibility to IASCC, the corrosion test of reprocessing plant materials, tests for evaluating barrier performance in terms of waste disposal were performed. A secondary system pipe from the Mihama Nuclear Power Station Unit-3 was accepted to inspect the ageing fracture of it. In RHL, 15 lead cells are dismantled under the decommissioning plan at JAERI Tokai. And an arrangement of the RHL facility was started to use the storage of unirradiated nuclear materials.