Reactor Decommissioning History
Argonne's EBWR Reactor
revised 8/15/05

Overview

The EBWR (Experimental Boiling Water Reactor) was located at Argonne National Laboratory - East (ANL-E) near Chicago, Illinois. It was a 7-foot (2.3-meter) diameter x 25-foot (7.5-meter) tall BWR test reactor. It had a maximum generating capacity of 100 MWt and produced electricity. It was operated from 1956 to July 1967. It was decommissioned while the facility was in a "cold and dark" state. Reactor disassembly began in 1994 and was completed in 1995.

Reactor Decommissioning Specifics

Internals Removal
All work inside the vessel was performed dry. Thermal cutting was performed dry inside the vessel in order to remove components. Once internals were removed from the vessel, they could be size reduced underwater (thermal) in the fuel pool or done dry in a cutting tent (although a tent was in place it is unknown if any of the internals were actually cut inside the tent). Thermal cuts were done with Plasma, Oxygen/Acetylene, and Oxygen/Propane torches.

All work on the internals was done by ALARON and Wachs Technical Services.

Reactor Vessel Removal
The pressure vessel was carbon steel with a stainless steel clad and a nominal thickness of 2.5-inches (64mm). Because of low dose rates some of the cutting was done hands on. Most of the cutting in the vessel was done using a Wachs turning machine. Reactor ring segments were removed from the cavity and staged for further size reduction. Final size reduction was done using thermal methods dry inside a ventilated tent. Mechanical cutting of the reactor nozzle penetrations was performed dry by Wachs Technical Services using mechanical turning (split frame machines). A mechanical milling machine (referred to as a "Rail Mill") was used dry by Wachs to perform linear cuts on the reactor vessel bottom bowl.

Abrasive Water Jet cutting was tested on a removed section of the vessel. Approximately 50-feet (15-meters) of linear cutting with this method. It is not known at this time if these cuts were performed underwater or dry.

Segmentation and Packaging Plan (S&P Plan)
Pre-site: Unknown
At site: Unknown

Key People
Al Solano was the on-site Project Manager for Wachs.
Larry Boing and Chuck Fellhauer representing ANL.
William "Bill" Bayes for ALARON.

Contractors
Wachs Technical Services (WTS).
ALARON.

Comments
Different cutting methods were utilized in part to be able to evaluate them for future nuclear reactor decommissioning work.

Related Publications and Documents
"Decontamination and Decommissioning of the Experimental Boiling Water Reactor (EBWR): Project Final Report, Argonne National Laboratory" by C.R. Fellhauer, L.E. Boing, and J. Aldana.

References
"Decontamination and Decommissioning of the Experimental Boiling Water Reactor (EBWR): Project Final Report, Argonne National Laboratory".
Wachs Technical Services as of 8/12/05.
Al Solano interview 2003.
Bruce Flannigan interview 2003.

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