Experimental Study of Pulsed Removal of Insoluble Fragments of a Simulator of the Fuel Elements of Spent Fuel Assemblies from a Batch Apparatus

The lead operation in the reprocessing of spent fuel assemblies at the RT-1 plant is leaching fuel, which is done in batch, semicontinuous and continuous regimes depending on the technology and equipment [14]. In the batch regime, fragments of length 2040 mm containing the fuel-element cladding metal and the nuclear fuel are delivered along a hermetic pipeline to an RP type apparatus (batch reactor) for dissolution. The apparatus has a pneumatic system for unloading metal from undissolved cladding in the form of solid radioactive wastes, which enter a pulsed pneumatic transport system for delivery to storage [35]. The objectives of the present work are to study the conditions for the removal of fragments of fuel-element cladding and to determine the regime required for unloading from sections of the apparatus by a pulse of compressed air. The main task of the experiments was to investigate the stability and completeness of cladding removal from sections of the apparatus as a function of the pressure in a receiver whose volume is constant.