3 Sep (NucNet): The RB-10/1 research reactor in southwest Russia has been fully decommissioned and removed from the site, with some of its components used to increase the capacity of a sister unit, Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom has said.
The reactor, at the Scientific Research Institute of Atomic Reactors (NIIAR) near Dimitrovgrad in Ulyanovsk Oblast, was shut down in December 2004. Rosatom said all spent nuclear fuel has been removed from the unit and the reactor core dissembled.
Some components from the 10-megawatt unit have been used in the RBT-10/2 research reactor, which is also at NIIAR and has a range of uses including material testing, fuel testing, isotope production and training.
Rosatom said that using components decommissioned from RBT-10/1 had allowed engineers to increase the capacity of the RBT-10/2 unit from 7 MW to 10 MW. “This has made it possible to increase by 30 percent the production of isotopes for medical purposes and of nuclear-doped silicon,” Rosatom said.
Construction of the RB-10/1 reactor began in 1978 and first criticality was achieved in 1983.
The reactor was used for research and development as part of the USSR’s nuclear energy programme.
Together with RBT-10/2, it was used to carry out experiments to study the properties of materials under irradiation in neutron fluxes with a relatively high average level of up to 100 trillion neutrons per square centimetre and per second.
According to the Washington-based Nuclear Threat Initiative, NIIAR is home to six of Russia's 62 research reactors. NIIAR carries out research related to the nuclear fuel cycle, particularly fuel fabrication and reprocessing technologies, as well as radioactive waste management. Additionally, NIIAR manufactures radionuclides and radioactive sources for medicine.
