Design of remotely operated vol-oxidizer for hot-cell application

A high-capacity vol-oxidizer which can handle a several hundred kgHM/batch is being developed to supply U₃O₈ powders to an electrolytic reduction reactor. In this paper, we deal with the development of remotely operated vol-oxidizer that can convert UO₂ pellets to U₃O₈ powders for hot-cell application. In order to develop this remotely operated vol-oxidizer, we proposed a design process and modular design for the remote operation in hot-cell, and the device has been modified by these modular design points and the design drawings have been presented. The design process consists of steps such as a mechanism device design, an engineering design and thermal analysis. To design the main mechanisms of the 1st step, we evaluated various mechanical (slitting, ball mill, roller straightening) and chemical methods (muffle furnace, rotary kiln). In the engineering design of the 2nd step, we calculated required volumes according to various weights and lengths of rod-cuts to design the reactor size. In the 3rd step, by using the modeling and analysis SWs (SolidWorks, COSMOSWorks), we built a 3D-modeling and performed an analysis of the main mechanisms for the safety design. We have selected the target modules of this devices such as heater, utility, motor, reactor, valve and outlet. The remote assembling and disassembling possibilities of the selected modules have been analyzed from the viewpoints of visibility, interference, approach, weight, and so on. We presented finally modular design suited to the above viewpoints.