Advanced Thermal Reactor (ATR) FUGEN is the heavy water-moderated, boiling light water-cooled, pressure tube-type reactor. The commercial operation of FUGEN started on Mar. 1978 and terminated on Mar. 2003 and the decommissioning of FUGEN has been carried out since the decommissioning plan was approved in 2008.
In order to perform the decommissioning work such as dismantling and decontamination safely and reasonably, technology development for the decommissioning has been promoted actively.
This paper describes a part of technology development as follows.
(1) Technology development on reactor dismantling
The reactor of FUGEN is made of various materials such as stainless steel, carbon steel, zirconium alloy and aluminum which have relatively high activity concentration by operation for 25 years.
With consideration of these characteristics, the reactor will be dismantled under water remotely in order to shield the radiation and prevent dust from migrating from water to air generated by the cutting considering the usage of zirconium alloy which is likely to be oxidized. In addition, laser cutting method whose features are fast cutting speed and less secondary waste in cutting will be applied for reactor dismantling.
However, laser cutting method has no experiences to be applied to dismantlement of reactor facilities. Therefore, laser cutting for actual dismantled objects in air was demonstrated in controlled area in FUGEN using laser cutting system composed of articulated robot and laser cutting head. As a result, safety and applicability of laser cutting system was confirmed. From now on, primary cutting work in air, cutting demonstration with a relatively high dose rate and mock-up test in water for dismantling the actual reactor will be carried out.
(2) Technology development on investigation of contamination
It is necessary to evaluate radioactive inventory in the facilities accurately in order to reflect the evaluated data to dismantling plan appropriately. Therefore, the investigation of the contamination for the facilities has been carried out for safe and reasonable decommissioning work.
The in-situ simple investigation method for the contamination of inner pipes which is mostly dominated by Co-60 is started to develop using the portable NaI(Tl) spectrometer. This method complements conventional investigation method to take samples from the pipes and to analyze them by radiochemical method to figure out the contamination of the whole facility.
