Experiences in dismantlement of gloveboxes for wet recovery and other use that are contaminated with nuclear fuel materials

Kitamura, Akihiro; Hirano, Hiroshi*; Yoshida, Masato; Takeuchi, Kentaro

Hoken Butsuri (Internet), 58(2), p.76 - 90, 2023/08

https://doi.org/10.5453/jhps.58.76

The alpha contaminated gloveboxes have been dismantled for over 20 years in Plutonium Fuel Fabrication Facility. The so called wet recovery equipment gloveboxes, which recover plutonium and uranium from scrap fuel by dissolving and extracting processes, were chosen as the priority gloveboxes to be dismantled. These gloveboxes and other gloveboxes in the same room were size reduced and removed up until 2022. Also, non-radioactive ancillary facility and non-radioactive giant glovebox were removed from 2007 to 2010 for ease of glovebox dismantling activities that follows and for making waste storage spaces. Several incidents were occurred and recidivism prevention measures were implemented on each occasion. In this report, glovebox dismantling activities we conducted in the past 20 years are reviewed and lessons we have learned are summarized.

Development of a cutting technique of core structural materials and fuel debris; Applicability test of the plasma jet cutting technique

Shoji, Tsugio; Fukui, Yasutaka; Ueda, Takiho

JAEA-Technology 2015-035, 70 Pages, 2016/01

JAEA-Technology-2015-035.pdf:8.07MB

The plasma jet cutting technology (Max output current is 250A) is developed for the dismantling of nuclear facilities in Oarai Research and Development Center. The plasma jet cutting technology is applicable to take out the debris. The plasma jet torch (Max output current is 600A) was produced for this application. This torch is available for the cutting of thick core internal materials in water. The ability of taking out debris and core internal material has been confirmed.