Removal of spent fuel sheared powder for decommissioning of Main Plant

Nishino, Saki; Okada, Jumpei; Watanabe, Kazuki; Furuuchi, Yuta; Yokota, Satoru; Yada, Yuji; Kusaka, Shota; Morokado, Shiori; Nakamura, Yoshinobu

JAEA-Technology 2023-011, 39 Pages, 2023/06

JAEA-Technology-2023-011.pdf:2.51MB

Tokai Reprocessing Plant (TRP) which shifted to decommissioning phase in 2014 had nuclear fuel materials such as the spent fuel sheared powder, the diluted plutonium solution and the uranium solution in a part of the reprocessing main equipment because TRP intended to resume reprocessing operations when it suspended the operations in 2007. Therefore, we have planned to remove these nuclear materials in sequence as Flush-out before beginning the decommissioning, and conducted removal of the spent fuel sheared powder as the first stage. The spent fuel sheared powder that had accumulated in the cell of the Main Plant (MP) as a result of the spent fuel shearing process was recovered from the cell floor, the shearing machine and the distributor between April 2016 and April 2017 as part of maintenance. Removing the recovered spent fuel sheared powder was conducted between June 2022 and September 2022. In this work, the recovered powder was dissolved in nitric acid at the dissolver in a small amount in order to remove it safely and early, and the dissolved solution was sent to the highly radioactive waste storage tanks without separating uranium and plutonium. Then, the dissolved solution transfer route was rinsed with nitric acid and water. Although about 15 years had passed since previous process operations, the removing work was successfully completed without any equipment failure because of the organization of a system that combines veterans experienced the operation with young workers, careful equipment inspections, and worker education and training. Removing this powder was conducted after revising the decommissioning project and obtaining approval from the Nuclear Regulation Authority owing to operating a part of process equipment.

Improvement construction for ground around High Active liquid Waste facility in Tokai Reprocessing Plant

Omori, Kazuki; Yamauchi, Sho; Yanagibashi, Futoshi; Sasaki, Shunichi; Wada, Takuya; Suzuki, Hisanori; Domura, Kazuyuki; Takeuchi, Kenji

Nihon Hozen Gakkai Dai-18-Kai Gakujutsu Koenkai Yoshishu, p.245 - 248, 2022/07

Tokai Reprocessing Plant (TRP), which is shifted to decommissioning stage, stores large amount of high-level radioactive liquid waste (HLLW). Although TRP is implementing vitrification of HLLW to reduce the risks related to HLLW storage, additional 20 years are required to complete vitrification of HLLW. Therefore, TRP is implementing safety countermeasure related to seismic resistance of HLLW storage facility as one of the top priorities. The results of the seismic evaluation indicate that although the facility itself is seismically resistant, there is a risk of insufficient binding force acting between the facility and the surrounding ground. Thus, replacement of the surrounding ground with concrete is performed. Since the countermeasures, to protect existing buries structure and coordinate with the other construction projects around the site, are required, the dedicated team was setup to handle the process and safety management of the concrete replacement construction.

Development of cement based encapsulation for low radioactive liquid waste in Tokai Reprocessing Plant

Matsushima, Ryotatsu; Sato, Fuminori; Saito, Yasuo; Atarashi, Daiki*

Proceedings of 3rd International Symposium on Cement-based Materials for Nuclear Wastes (NUWCEM 2018) (USB Flash Drive), 4 Pages, 2018/10

At TRP, LWTF was constructed as a facility for processing low radioactive liquid waste and solid waste generated at TRP, and a cold test is been carrying out. In this facility, initially, nitrate waste liquid after separation of nuclides generated with treatment of low radioactive liquid waste was to be solidified by using borate. However, at present, it is necessary to decompose the nitrate in the liquid waste to reduce the environmental burden. For the reason, as a plan to replace the nitrate with the carbonate and to make it as a cement based encapsulation, we are studying for the introduction of the facility. Currently, as a cement solidification technology development for this liquid waste, we are studying the application of cement material based on blast furnace slag (BFS) as a main component. In this report, we show the results of the test conducted on the actual scale (200 L drum can scale).

Integrity check of Tokai Reprocessing Plant after the Tohoku Region Pacific Coast Earthquake

Nakano, Takafumi; Sato, Fuminori; Shirozu, Hidetomo; Nakanishi, Ryuji; Fukuda, Kazuhito; Tachibana, Ikuya

Nihon Genshiryoku Gakkai-Shi ATOMO, 57(1), p.14 - 20, 2015/01

https://doi.org/10.3327/jaesjb.57.1_14

no abstracts in English

Behavior of carbon-14 in the Tokai reprocessing plant

; ; ; Omori, Eiichi

JNC TN8410 2001-021, 33 Pages, 2001/09

JNC-TN8410-2001-021.pdf:4.37MB

Carbon-14 released from the nuclear facilities is an important radionuclide for the safety assessment, because it tends to accumulate in environment through food chain and has as a significant impact to personal dose. Carbon-14 has been monitored routinely as one of the main gaseous radionuclides exhausted from the Tokai Reprocessing Plant (TRP) since OCtober of 1991. Furthermore, behavior of carbon-14 in TRP has been investigated through the reprocessing operation and the literature survey. This report describes the result of investigation about the behavior of carbon-14 in TRP as followings. (1)Only a very small amount of carbon-14 in the fuel was liberated into the shear off-gas and most of it was liberated into the dissolver of-gass. Part of the carbon-14 was trapped at the caustic scrubber installed in the of-gas treatment process, and untrapped carbon-14 was released into the environment from the main stack. Amount of carbon-14 released from the main stack was about 4.16.5GBq every ton of uranium reprocessed. (2)Carbon-14 trapped at the caustic scrubbers installed in the dissolver off-gas and in the vessel off-gas treatment process is transferred to the low active waste vessel. Amount of carbon-14 transferred to the low active waste vessel was about 5.4 9.6GBq every ton of uranium reprocessed. (3)The total amount of carbon-14 input to TRP was summed up to about 11.915.5 GBq every ton of uranium reprocessed considering the released amount from the main stack and the trapped amount in the off-gas treatment devices. The amount of nitrogen impurity in the initial fuel was calculated about 1522ppm of uranium metal based on the measured carbon-14. (4)The solution in the low active waste vesselis concentrated at the evaporator.Most of the carbon-14 in the solution was transferred into concentrated solution. (5)Tokai vitrification Demonstration Facility (TVF) started to operate in 1994. Since then, carbon-14 has been measured in the ...

Study on the cause of fire and explosion incident at bituminization demonstration facility

Koyama, Tomozo; ; Omori, Eiichi; ; ; Shibata, Atsuhiro; Shigetome, Yoshiaki

JNC TN8410 99-027, 423 Pages, 1999/12

JNC-TN8410-99-027.pdf:22.46MB

The bituminization demonstration facility of Tokai Reprocessig Plant had a fire and explosion incident. The cause of the incident was investigated. Also, the facility condition and release of radioactive materials were evaluated. The cause of the fire and subsequent explosion was determined in a two year investigation. The main cause of the fire was that the temperature of the bituminized product rose to an unusually high temperature by a physical heating phenomena inside the extruder, which was caused by the lowering the feed rate of liquid waste. A moderate chemical reaction in the bituminized product continued and consequently the bituminized product overheated and ignited. The cause of the explosion was the accumulation of flammable gases generated from insufficiently extinguished bituminized product in the filling room in which the ventilation system had been shut down. The flammable gas was ignited by another bituminized product that overheated to the flash point temperature. This report details the condition of the facility before and after the incident, cause of the incident, and an evaluated amount of released radioactive materials.

Review of design data for safety assessment of Tokai reprocessing plant; Control of hydrogen gas produced by radiolysis of reprocessing solutions at Tokai reprocessing plant

Omori, Eiichi; ; ; ; Maki, Akira; Yamanouchi, Takamichi

JNC TN8410 2000-003, 93 Pages, 1999/10

JNC-TN8410-2000-003.pdf:4.92MB

Radioactive materials in aqueous solution at a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant causes radiolytic generalion of several gases including hydrogen. Hydrogen accumulating in equipment can be an explosion hazard. In such plants, though the consideration in the design has been fundamentally made in order to remove the ignition source from the equipment, the hydrogen concentration in the equipment should not exceed the explosion threshold. It is, therefore, desired to keep the hydrogen concentration lower than the explosion threshold by diluting with the air introduced into equipment, from the viewpoint which previously prevents the explosion. This report describes the calculation of hydrogen generation, evaluation of hydrogen concentration under abnormal operation and consideration of possible improvement at Tokai Reprocessing Plant. The amount of hydrogen generation was calculated for each equipment from available data on radiolysis induced by radioactive materials. Taking into consideration for abnormal condition that is single failure of air supply and loss of power supply, the investigation was made on the method for controlling so that the hydrogen concentration may not exceed the explosion threshold. Possible means which can control the concentration of hydrogen gas under the explosion threshold have been also investigated. As the result, it was found that hydrogen concentration of most equipment was kept under the explosion threshold. It was also shown that improvement of the facility was necessary on the equipment in which the concentration of the hydrogen may exceed the explosion threshold. Proposals based on the above results are also given in this report. The above content has been described in "Examination of the hydrogen produced by the radiolysis" which is a part of "Review of Design Data for Safety Assessment of Tokai Reprocessing Plant" (JNC TN8410 99-002) published in February 1999. This report incorporates the detail evaluation so that operation ...

Integrity check of Tokai Reprocessing Plant after the Tohoku Region Pacific Coast Earthquake, 1; Background and outline

Nakano, Takafumi; Fukuda, Kazuhito; Sato, Fuminori; Kosaka, Ichiro; Nagasato, Yoshihiko

no journal, , 

no abstracts in English

Integrity check of Tokai Reprocessing Plant after the Tohoku Region Pacific Coast Earthquake, 2; Earthquake response analysis of installations in TRP

Koshino, Katsuhiko; Shirai, Nobutoshi; Sakaguchi, Shinobu; Shirozu, Hidetomo; Otaki, Miyuki*; Kosaka, Ichiro; Nakano, Takafumi; Nagasato, Yoshihiko; Tachibana, Ikuya

no journal, , 

no abstracts in English

Development of treatment for low radioactive effluent in Tokai Reprocessing Plant 12; Small-scale experiment of cement based encapsulation

Horiguchi, Kenichi; Sato, Fuminori; Yamashita, Masaaki; Kojima, Junji; Kadota, Hirofumi*; Atarashi, Daiki*; Sakai, Etsuo*

no journal, , 

A large amount of nitrate in effluent occurring from Tokai reprocessing plant might cause environmental pollution. The effluent is planning to be encapsulated by cement after treated in the nitrate ion decomposition process. In this presentation, we will report the results of the small scale tests for cement solidification technology development of effluent containing a sodium carbonate.