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First reactor pressure vessel dismantled in Sweden, says Rosatom

The work took 13 months

MOSCOW, December 6. /TASS/. Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom has successfully completed the in-situ part of the dismantling of the first reactor pressure vessel of a commercially operated nuclear power plant in Sweden at the Barseback site, TVEL Fuel Company, a subsidiary of Rosatom, said in a statement on Monday.

"The dismantling of the reactor pressure vessel in Sweden is the first reference of Rosatom for commercial BWR reactors. We look forward to reaching the next milestones in this important project," Chairman of the NUKEM Advisory Board, Head of Integrator for decommissioning at Rosatom’s TVEL Fuel Company Vadim Sukhikh was quoted as saying.

The dismantling was carried out by a consortium of NUKEM Technologies (part of TVEL network) and Uniper Anlagenservice (Germany), according to the report. A total of 430 tonnes were dismantled. "In the first phase of the dismantling (in-situ), the reactor pressure vessel was thermally cut into rings with a height between 0.9 and 1.8 m, the so-called "barrel shells". Each of these vessel sections weighs 12 to 24 tonnes. In this way, the entire reactor pressure vessel was pre-cut step by step from top to bottom into 13 rings plus the lower part of the reactor. The pre-cut rings were moved to post-segmentation zone and then cut into manageable pieces, which were then packed in special containers," TVEL explained. The work totally took 13 months. The entire consortium project is scheduled to be completed in 2024.

NUKEM Technologies is world-wide active in the areas of management of radioactive waste and spent fuel, decommissioning of nuclear facilities, engineering and consulting. Since 2021, NUKEM Technologies is part of Fuel Company TVEL.