Remote wall thickness measurement of the fuel basket of the dissolver

Yokota, Satoru; Hatanaka, Akira; Fujimori, Masahito; Shimoyamada, Tetsuya; Nakamura, Yoshinobu

Three batch-type dissolvers in the Tokai Reprocessing Plant are a device for dissolving spent fuel. The dissolver is composed of one slab and two barrels (stainless steel 310s). Install a fuel basket (stainless steel 304L) in the barrel and accept the sheared spent fuel to dissolve it. The insoluble fuel cladding is taken out of the barrels with the basket. The dissolution time of operation for one batch is approximately 10 hours. During dissolution operation, nitric acid was added to the dissolver into the spent fuel in the basket with water. The solution was heated with steam. Corrosion failure has occurred in the past because the dissolver is exposed to a high corrosive environment (high temperature, high acid concentration). Therefore, we carry out the periodical wall thickness measurement of the barrel by the remote control. On the other hand, the wall thickness measurement of the fuel basket was carried out only once by destructive measurement at the time of renewal in 1999. The details of the corrosion tendency of the fuel basket are unknown, and it is urgent to establish a non-destructive measurement method by remote handling. Therefore, we examined the method of wall thickness measurement of the fuel basket and established the measuring technique.