Conceptual study of transmutation experimental facility, 5; Investigation of MA fuel handling

Sugawara, Takanori  ; Nishihara, Kenji  ; Sasa, Toshinobu   ; Tsujimoto, Kazufumi ; Tazawa, Yujiro; Oigawa, Hiroyuki 

Transmutation Physics Experimental Facility (TEF-P) planned in the J-PARC is a critical assembly with low thermal output and it will treat large amount of highly-radioactive minor actinide (MA) fuels in the experiments. Handling of the MA fuels in each stage of storage, transport and loading/unloading to the core was conceptually investigated, then, criticality, dose and cooling performance were assessed. For the criticality, it was shown that the effective multiplication factors in each step, storage, transport and loading, were sufficiently lower than 1.0. For the dose, the dose for workers will be reduced by installing remote handling devices to treat the MA fuels. For the cooling performance, it was found that the temperature of the core would be kept low in the normal operation. On the other hand, in the case which the air conditioning or the blower for the core stopped for long period, it was shown that there would be a possibility of the MA fuel failure.