ON-SITE TRANSFERS Irradiated fuel-assembly transfer between two spent fuel pools of the same site

Électricité de France (EDF) wishes to be able to transfer fuel assemblies from the pool of a unit to the pool of another unit of the same site. It is valuable to do so, for instance, in the following situations : operational constraints or economic optimisation. If we want to be able to carry on the irradiation of these fuel assemblies after the transfer, the transfer must allow the fuel assemblies to be as \"healthy\" as they were initially. To reach this goal the best solution is to perform a “wet” transfer that allows maintaining the fuel rods in unchanged mechanical and thermal state, during and after the transfer. For that, EDF has used its usual cask, which is a \"dry designed\" cask having been partially filled with water. The operation being run on a nuclear site, is not ruled by safe transport regulation but by nuclear safety. The following presentation sums-up the demonstration of the safety of such an operation made by EDF to the French Competent Authority, which lead to an authorization. Up to now, EDF had effectively carried out on \"experimental\" and six \"industrial\" transfers.