Abstract
The ORANO la Hague plant (Manche) must be innovative in dismantling its old facilities.
In particularly, the dismantling HAO’s cells (High Activities Oxides building) involves the clean-up of equipment in cells that was used to shear and dissolve spent fuel.
Electro chemical Decontamination (ED) was extensively used in the pre-maintenance job decontamination for its high efficiency and innocuousness towards the components treated. It generates low amount of effluent, usually exhibit high contamination and dose rate as DF high as 1000 were commonly obtained.
Its ventures in the D&D areas were rare, because of the complex set-up.
Addressing a recurrent implementation issue, ORANO DS is developing, from an equipment developed by the company REUTER GmbH, a simple solution to be able to use ED to treat metal waste which, after clean-up operations, has an activity not compatible with surface waste disposal. Electro-decontamination will also be used to reduce the level of radiological exposure, to allow human access and to keep compatible conditions for the nuclear measure in Zone 4 (e.g. cell 916 HAO).
The purpose of this technical development in collaboration with REUTER GmbH is to adapt an ED equipment to allow its use in a specific nuclear environment: work in zone 4, where access is forbidden to humans and interventions are carried out by remote handling.
