Decontamination & Decommissioning
PAGE 2 of 3

Video Fuel Inspection
FTI recently completed a video visual inspection of spent fuel in the Maine Yankee spent fuel pool, working with Master-Lee. "The inspection is done on fuel assemblies in the spent fuel pool in order to ensure the assemblies meet some of the licensing requirements for the dry storage canisters," said Twilley. The video visual inspection is a challenge given the high radioactivity levels of the fuel.

The fuel inspection station, provided and operated by Framatome Cogema Fuels, uses three high definition zoom cameras, equipped with high intensity lights. One camera looks up from the bottom of the fuel assembly, the other two cameras are on adjacent sides so that the fuel assembly need only be rotated ½ of a turn after withdrawal from the storage location in order to complete inspection of the entire fuel assembly.

At Maine Yankee the FTI/Master-Lee team inspected 1,136 fuel assemblies, averaging more than 32 assemblies inspected in a typical 10-hour day. The FTI/Master-Lee team has also been contracted by Bechtel to conduct a similar video fuel inspection at Connecticut Yankee.

Gamma Spectroscopy
Immediately following fuel inspection activities at Maine Yankee, FTI performed underwater gamma spectroscopy of "non-fuel" waste materials stored in the spent fuel pool. At Maine Yankee, the goal of this analysis was to determine whether spent nuclear fuel was contained in the wastes and to support the eventual disposal of the material.

This was a first-of-a-kind application of in-situ gamma spectroscopy in an underwater environment to characterize high activity waste. FTI performed a total of 194 scans on 51 separate "non-fuel" objects, which included filters and waste containers.

"Underwater gamma spectroscopy enables the customer to accurately screen radioactive waste and debris to focus their acquisition of physical samples to specific locations on individual objects of interest," said Matt Hernandez, FTI D&D Technical Advisor - Radiological Services. Because in-situ analysis isn't affected by the non-homogeneous distribution of radioactivity in an object, it eliminates unnecessary sampling and results in a higher quality waste characterization effort.