• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.1715-1718
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• 2005

During demonstrations of a process conditioning spent nuclear fuels, it may be necessary to transport and handle Spent fuel road cuts from Post Irradiation Examination facility to Slitting device in The hot cell. It may be not easy to transport spent fuel rod cuts because rod cuts are high radioactive materials. For this purpose, we have developed a capsule for transporting and handling high radioactive materials. We have analyzed conditions of a hot cell and requirements of the device, designed and manufactured The prototype of the device, and done some performance tests. From the tests, it has been shown that transportation and handling without scattering nuclear material was smooth but the weight of capsule was heavy. These result will be reflected to a design of the improved transportation and handling device which will be used during demonstrations.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2005.10a
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• pp.1055-1058
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• 2005

In the ACPF(Advanced spent nuclear fuel Conditioning Process Facility), the spent fuel pellets which are highly radioactive materials are separated with its clad and are fed into the next conditioning process. For this, at the other facility called PIEF(Post Irradiation Examination Facility) a spent fuel rod, 3.5 m long, is cut by 25 cm long which is suitable length fur the decladding process. These rod-cuts are packed into the capsule and are moved to the ACPF. Once the capsule is unloaded in the ACPF, the rod-cut is taken out one-by-one from the capsule and installed on the decladding device. In these processes, the crushed spent fuel pellet can be scattered inside the facilities and thus it contaminate the hot cell. In this paper, we developed the specially designed capsule which prevents the pellets scattering and remarkably reduces the leading and unloading time of the rod-cuts.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2009.10a
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• pp.413-414
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• 2009

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2008.05a
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• pp.473-476
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• 2008

In this paper, we designed the main mechanism of high throughput device for rod-cuts of spent fuel. For this, we analyzed the mechanical methods(slitting, ball mill, roller straightening) and chemical methods(muffle furnace, rotary kiln). As the results, methods of ball drop and rotary drum for concepts design were selected in the analysis step. For enhancement of oxidation rate, we devised the blades on the reactor with mesh type. Also, for enhancement of decladding rate, we designed ball size and rotation reactor with mesh type and devised the vacuum system for fission products. Mechanisms of oxidation and recovery can simultaneously handle the rod-cuts of spent fuel and independently recover. The results of mechanism design can be used for scale-up of high throughput device.

• Proceedings of the Korean Radioactive Waste Society Conference
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• 2018.11a
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• pp.191-192
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• 2018

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2006.05a
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• pp.141-144
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• 2006

In this study, we developed a decladding device which separates 250 mm length of simulated nuclear spent fuel rod into the pallets and the pieces of the hulls after inserting the rod cut into the module with several pairs of blades. To improve the performance of the equipment, we considered some mechanisms to prevent the rod cut from being exposed or bounced into the hot-cell, to reduce the operation time, and to insert the rods automatically. It is expected that the newly developed system will contribute to prevent radioactive pollution in the hot-cell, reduce the operation time, and to increase the safety of the operators. As a result of the performance test for some mockup fuel rod cuts in the ACP(Advanced Spent Fuel Control Process) facility, it was verified that the decladding device could be applied to the actual fuel rod cut. And it will be able to use for a scale-up facility in the future.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.757-758
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• 2009

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.785-786
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• 2008

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2009.10a
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• pp.379-380
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• 2009

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2002.05a
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• pp.684-687
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• 2002

The authors have developed two devices which cuts the spend fuel rod to an optimal size and extracts fuel pellet from the pieces of cut fuel rods. These devices are so important to reduce radioactive wastes that some advanced countries developed their own methods and devices. The authors have benchmarked from these methods and devices. For spent fuel rod cutting, the tube cutting method has been chosen. some mechanical properties of the fuel tube and pellet has been carefully considered for an optimal cutting size. For fuel pellet extraction, a mechanically extracting method has been adopted. The existing chemical method have turned out to be inappropriate because it produced large amount of radioactive wastes, in spite of its high fuel recovery characteristics. The developed method has an advantage that it can be applied to other fuel rods that have different shapes and sizes. The two devices are set up and operated in the hot cell where people can not go in, so that the devices have been designed to be controlled remotely and modulated for easy maintenance. And the performance of the devices has been tested by using simulated fuel rod. From the experimental results, the devices are supposed to be useful for reducing radioactive wastes.