Patent ID: 7143969

Claim:
A decladding apparatus of spent nuclear fuel, comprising: a shearing device for shearing a plurality of spent nuclear fuel pins into shredded fragments, said shearing device comprising a rotary cutter having a plurality of blades on each of two rotating shafts that are arranged parallel to each other and to be rotated in reverse directions to each other, said blades being fitted on said two rotating shafts and assembled together so as to alternately fit between each other to be partially lapped on one another, and a screen for retaining the fragments until the fragments are finely sheared so that a main portion of the fragments are of a size of 2 mm or less; a classifier for classifying the shredded fragments from said shearing device into a large particle size portion and a small particle size portion; and a magnetic separator for magnetically separating the shredded fragments from said classifier, said magnetic separator comprising a small particle size separator for the separation of the small particle size portion of the shredded fragments and a large particle size separator for the separation of the large particle size portion of the shredded fragments.