Manufacture of substitutive assemblies for MONJU reactor decommissioning

Sakakibara, Hiroshi; Aoki, Nobuhiro; Muto, Masahiro; Otabe, Jun; Takahashi, Kenji*; Fujita, Naoyuki*; Hiyama, Kazuhiko*; Suzuki, Hirokazu*; Kamogawa, Toshiyuki*; Yokosuka, Toru*; Saito, Yoshinobu*; Hagiya, Takeru*; Ando, Yasuhiro*; Yamazaki, Tatsuya*; Kimura, Masahiko*; Kikuno, Hiroshi; Saito, Kosuke; Ikusawa, Yoshihisa   ; Kamei, Miho

The decommissioning is currently in progress at the prototype fast breeder reactor Monju. Fuel assemblies will be taken out of its core for the first step of the great task. Fuel assemblies stand on their own spike plugged into a socket on the core support plate and support with adjacent assemblies through their housing pads each other, resulting in steady core structure. For this reason, some substitutive assemblies are necessary for the purpose of discharging the fuel assemblies of the core. Monju side commissioned, therefore, Plutonium Fuel Development Center to manufacture the substitutive assemblies and the Center accepted it. This report gives descriptions of design, manufacture, and shipment in regard to the substitutive assemblies.