Operating and maintenance experiences of rebottling equipment for plutonium dioxide powder received from foreign country

Ono, Takanori; Hatanaka, Nobuhiro; Okita, Takatoshi; Aono, Shigenori

In January of 1993, plutonium dioxide powder was received from the reprocessing plant "La Hague" of COGEMA in France to Plutonium Fuel Production Facility (PFPF) of JAEA to use as feed powder of MOX fuel for FBR prototype "Monju". Since the plutonium dioxide powder was contained in COGEMA type canisters, the powder had to be rebottled from CCGEMA type canisters to JAEA type canisters which can be handled in the PFPF. Therefore feed powder rebottling equipment and temporary feed storage equipment were developed and installed in the PFPF. Rebottling work with their equipments was started from March of 1993 and completed in March of 2006. This report summarizes operating and maintenance experiences on feed powder rebottling equipment and temporary feed storage equipment. It's important to reflect the operating and maintenance experiences of the rebottling equipment into design of a new rebottling equipment for uranium-plutonium mixed oxide powder.