The First Decommissioning of a Fusion Reactor Fueled by Deuterium-Tritium
Authors: Charles A. Gentile, Erik Perry, Keith Rule, Michael Williams, Robert Parsells, Michael Viola, and James Chrzanowski
Date of PPPL Report: October 2003
Presented at: the Ninth International Conference on Environmental Remediation and Radioactive Waste Management (ICEM '03), 21-25 September 2003, Oxford, England. To be published as conference proceedings.
The Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR) at the Plasma Physics Laboratory of Princeton University (PPPL) was the first fusion reactor fueled by a mixture of deuterium and tritium (D-T) to be decommissioned in the world. The decommissioning was performed over a period of three years and was completed safely, on schedule, and under budget. Provided is an overview of the project and detail of various factors which led to the success of the project. Discussion will cover management of the project, engineering planning before the project started and during the field work as it was being performed, training of workers in the field, the novel adaptation of tools from other industry, and the development of an innovative process for the use of diamond wire to segment the activated/contaminated vacuum vessel. The success of the TFTR decommissioning provides a viable model for the decommissioning of D-T burning fusion devices in the future.