Experiences in Dismantlement of Gloveboxes for Wet Recovery and Other Use That Are Contaminated with Nuclear Fuel Materials

Plutonium Fuel Fabrication Facility of Plutonium Fuel Development Center, JAEA is in the phase of maintenance and decommissioning. We have been dismantling alpha contaminated gloveboxes for over 20 years. The wet recovery equipment gloveboxes that are used to recover plutonium and uranium from scrap fuel were chosen as the priority gloveboxes to be dismantled. These gloveboxes and other gloveboxes in the same room have been size reduced and removed by 2023. We also dismantled non-radioactive ancillary facilities and non-radioactive giant gloveboxes from 2007 to 2010. This made enough space to dismantle contaminated gloveboxes and store resulting wastes that follow. Several incidents occurred in these 20 years, and we took recurrence prevention measures on each occasion. Thus, the dismantling activities became safer and well organized as the work progresses. In this report, we review and summarize the dismantling activities and the lessons we have learned for the past years. In addition, we show radiological control measures we adopted and implemented.