AUTOMATED DRY ROD CONSOLIDATION - THE CHALLENGE OF THE PROTOTYPICAL CONSOLIDATION DEMONSTRATION PROJECT

DOE-Idaho is sponsoring the development of horizontal rod consolidation equipment to be used in a dry environment at future DOE facilities as part of the waste disposal functions of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM). The Prototypical Consolidation Demonstration Project (PCDP) is in.the third of four phases of completion. Design of the prototype equipment is complete, and work has been initiated to procure, fabricate, assemble, and perform extensive cold checkout testing of the automated rod consolidation equipment. Col4 4^sting of the prototypical consolidation equipment will be conducted to demonstrate that the equipment will be suitable for application in fuel processing at a future Monitored Retrievable Storage (MRS) Facility or High-Level Waste Repository. Some of the functional requirements for the equipment are: (1) annual throughput rate of 750 MTHM of spent fuel assemblies; (2) capability to consolidate spent fuel from any pressurized water reactor (PWR) or boiling water reactor (BWR) that represents greater than 1% of the spent fuel inventory in the United States in the year 2000; and (3) capability to assemble consolidated fuel rods into square, round or trapezoidal configurations to be compatible with packaging that will be used at a repository or MRS facility. Cold checkout testing of this equipment will be completed in 1991. The results of the testing can then provide input to nuclear materials management and safeguards decisions of the 1990's.