Evaluation of Remote Operability and Maintainability of Pyroprocessing Equipment

A pyroprocessing technology is being developed at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute. This technology development is conducted in a completely sealed argon cell where, as the cell is active, human operators' access to the in-cell is not possible owing to the nature of the toxicity of argon gas. Relevant processing equipment installed inside the cell should be operated and maintained in a fully remote manner by using remote handling systems. This paper describes the procedures of evaluating the processing equipment from the remote operation and maintenance viewpoints from the design stage to the fabrication using evaluation systems such as a simulator and an evaluation mock-up. The remote operability and maintainability of the design models of the processing equipment were evaluated in a simulator. The fabricated processing equipment was tested in an evaluation mock-up before being installed in the argon cell. The evaluation results conducted on the 3D models of electro-refining processing equipment in a simulator and the fabricated electrolytic reduction processing equipment in an evaluation mock-up are also demonstrated.