PROJECT RESULTS / Annual Technical Results

Year 5 : ESDRED TECHNICAL RESULTS to January 2009

Module 2: Waste canister Transfer and Emplacement Technology for Horizontal and Vertical Disposal Concepts

Summary :

In the 5th project year, the partners DBE TECHNOLOGY GmbH and ANDRA finalised their demonstration work within ESDRED.

For the vertical concept (German) – the BSK 3 transport and emplacement system –the construction of the test stand (located at a former turbine hall of a power station in the village of Landesbergen, Federal State of Lower-Saxony) was completed in April 2008. After successful factory commissioning for each individual fabricated component (Figures 1 to 3), the shipment to the test facility took place in June 2008. There the complete tests of compliance were performed prior to the start of the entire demonstration programme, which was officially launched with a grand opening event on September 9, 2009 and continued until the end of the project. Figure 4 provides a photo from the fully equipped test stand and figure 5 shows a photo taken during the Grand Opening Event. At the end of more than 1000 transport and emplacement processes (recovery actions included) the safety and reliability of the BSK 3 system was proven and a new state of the art regarding vertical emplacement technology for spent fuel canisters achieved. An international workshop on waste canister transport and emplacement technologies held at DBE TECHNOLOGY´s premises on November 4 and 5, 2008, completed a successful Year 5.

For the horizontal concept (French) – the Pushing Robot System- all activities were completed in Year 5 as well. The fabrication and the commissioning of all the individual components were completed in May 2008, while the erection and assembly of the complete system took place between June and September 2008 in the selected site (a workshop in Saint-Chamond). The test campaign of the full scale industrial demonstrator was successfully performed (including the endurance testing of the system as a whole) and completed in December 2008. All the target performances established at the beginning of the project were achieved. Higher performances were in fact also achieved, since the Pushing Robot System turned out to be capable of emplacing 3 canisters at a time (instead of one) up to a distance of 100m from the disposal cell mouth (instead of only 40m). Figure 6 and following figures show the various components and the entire test facility for the industrial demonstrator as set up in Saint-Chamond. A formal presentation of the Demonstrator at work took place twice: once in November 2008 for some of the ESDRED Partners and again in January 2009 for some representatives of various nuclear waste producers (French and Belgian).

At the end of the project the results of the work carried out in Module2, as well as the lessons learned, were summarized in the Final Technical Report.


Figure 1: DBE TEC – Commissioning of the borehole lock at the fabricator's workshop (left) and implementation in the borehole cellar at the test site (right)


Figure 2: DBE TEC - Emplacement device at the fabricator’s workshop (left) and during erection phase at the test site (right)


Figure 3: DBE TEC – Commissioning of the transfer cask at the fabricator’s workshop (left) and positioned on the new transport cart at the test site (right)


Figure 4: DBE TEC –Photo of the fully equipped BSK 3 Emplacement test facility at Landesbergen, Lower Saxony, Germany


Figure 5: DBE TEC Photo taken from the Grand Opening Event at the test site
in Landesbergen on September 9, 2008


Figure 6: ANDRA Photos (clockwise) of cell mouth shielding door, shielding transfer cask, pushing robot and shielding cask door


Figure 7: ANDRA`s demonstrator as set in the test facility in St Chamont (Loire department, France)


Figure 8: ANDRA View of the Demonstrator with disposal cell liner in S shape configuration complete with drift mock-up

Ongoing work: