Research and Development of Robot for Reactor Dismantlement - Current Status and Perspective of Development of Robot through JPDR Decommissioning Program

Robot systems to be applied to the actual dismantlement of the Japan Power Demonstration Reactor (JPDR) have been developed in the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute (JAERI) since 1981 as a part of the technical development for reactor decommissioning. The development has been carried out through the steps of the fundamental and mock-up tests of the robots not only to meet the technical functions required to each cutter but also to match with the supporting equipments by taking the whole dismantling system into consideration. This paper describes the results of the multifaceted evaluation of the design philosophy of the dismantling robots. The dismantlement of the core internals of JPDR started in January, 1988, using the robot developed in JAERI. Various data on these robots will be obtained through their applications to JPDR, which are required to design a dismantling system for the future decommissioning of commercial nuclear power plants.