General Approach to the Fuel Containing Materials and Associated Radioactive Waste Management at the Stage of Their Removal from the Shelter Object Premises
Authors:   Institute for Safety Problems of Nuclear Power Plants, NAS of Ukraine, Balan O. V. , Pavlovskyi L. I. , Rudko V. M. , Pidbereznyi S. S. 
Published: June 2024

After the commissioning of the New Safe Confinement — Shelter object (NSC-SO) complex, radioactive waste (RAW) management activities during the removal of fuel containing materials (FCM) from the SO premises must be carried out with the involvement of NSC systems, including the system of main cranes (SMC), as well as systems and equipment of the technological building (TB), as a component of the NSC. The paper presents a new principled approach to waste management that will be generated during the extraction of FCM from the SO. The transport and technological chains of waste management by their types are considered: FCM, highly active waste and associated RAW. It is noted that the dose rates in many areas of work in the SO can reach 10 Sv/h. In such conditions, the involvement of personnel in physical work should be completely excluded, and the robotics, which will participate in technological operations, should be prepared for work in high ionizing radiation fields. For this reason, the removed FCM cannot be sent for processing to the TB of the NSC, as is done with other RAW (medium-level waste, low-level waste), which were removed from the premises of the SO earlier. It is justified that handling of FCM should be carried out in hermetic protective blocks (block of hot cells). Such cameras should be built in the NSC space as part of the new production building. It is noted that the volume of associated RAW, which will be formed during the extraction of FCM from the SO, will be extremely large. It is practically impossible to carry out their quantitative assessment. The work on the management of associated RAW will be carried out similarly to the work on the removal of FCM. Detected highly active fragments on overall structures should be cut out if possible, and small fragments or detected explosives in building materials are loaded into a transportable container for explosives with their further transfer of the container to the block of hot cameras. The remaining RAW, including radioactively contaminated metal structures and radioactively contaminated concrete structures, are loaded into the container for adjacent RAW and moved to the NSC temporary storage site. Waste removal work should be carried out using a system of a mobile instrument platform of the NSC crane with a remotely controlled robot manipulator (RCRM) attached to it and separate mobile remotely controlled mechanisms (RCM) on their own, depending on their needs. Conclusions are given regarding the sufficiency of infrastructure capabilities for RAW handling at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant and in the Exclusion Zone (EZ), to ensure this activity in general. It is noted that the activities for the preparation of infrastructure facilities for waste management during the removal of FCM from the SO should be directed both to the extension of the operational life of existing facilities and to the construction of new ones.