CONSIDERATIONS REGARDING THE HORIZONTAL FUEL CHANNELS NUCLEAR REACTOR. PART 2 - DISMANTLING MAIN STEPS OF THE FUEL CHANNEL

Abstract

Based on the knowledge referring to presentation and assembly the fuel channel components into calandria of CANDU nuclear reactor, the objective of this paper is to achieve a possible method for the horizontal fuel channels decommissioning from calandria vessel. The decommissioning of nuclear reactor consists in a planning phase and the implementation of all procedures in operation, methods and technologies for decommissioning, including decontamination, dismantling, waste management, robotics and remote operation. The decommissioning of fuel channels, one of the most important operation in the nuclear reactor dismantling, represents the final phase which is performed in the nuclear power facility decommissioning and refers to the technical operations taken to extract the components from inside of the nuclear reactor channel. The dismantling operation stages of the fuel channel components should be repeated for each of all 380 channels of the reactor, starting from the front of calandria side and continuing with the rear side. The decommissioning requires activities with help of a decommissioning device, such as, locking/unlocking the channel closure and the shield plug, pressure tube cutting, extracting of each component from the channel, as well as radioactive waste management. The radiological safety analyses should be made by certified experts, for protection assessment to radiation exposure of workers in time of fuel channel dismantling.