Mumbai, Sept 18: Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) has designed and developed the first of its kind advanced automation system for transfer of spent fuel bundles of Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors for nuclear reprocessing plants.
“Introduction of this automation system for reprocessing plant is aimed at transferring the fuel bundles directly from fuel handling area (FHA) of storage pool to the dissolver cell in an automated way, without the necessity of using charging cask,” Director of Remote Handling and Robotics and Design, Manufacturing and Automation Group of BARC Manjit Singh told PTI.
“This contributes in eliminating dependency on skilled man-power and thus reduction of man-rem (radiation dose) consumption by workers,” Singh said.
A preliminary safety analysis report (PSAR) has been reviewed and approved by the BARC Safety Council and the first automated system for spent fuel nuclear reprocessing plant will be set at Tarapur in Maharashtra soon and work in that direction has already begun, he said.
Singh also pointed out that the system design is such that it can easily be adopted to handle fuel from 220MW PHWR as well as from 550 MW / 700 MW with minimum changes. Provision has also been kept for manual changing of spent fuel in case of non-availability of automation system, he added.
The spent fuel bundles from nuclear power reactors (in this case PHWRs) are stored under water at reactor site. After allowing it to cool down for given period, spent fuel bundles from reactor site are transferred to underwater storage facility at the nuclear fuel reprocessing plant site, D N Badodkar of the Division of Remote Handling and Robotics, who developed the design, said. PTI
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