Analysis of Cooling System for Ion-Plasma Decontamination Technology

The article is devoted to the ion-plasma technology being developed to solve the problems of decontamination of irradiated reactor graphite and in-circuit equipment, as well as the problems of decommissioning various types of nuclear reactors. The features of the technical implementation of a device for decontamination and the cooling system of the electrode-collector for deposition of radionuclides to be removed by “shortened” discharge plasma from the surface of intracircular equipment and irradiated graphite are considered. The physical and thermal engineering processes underlying ion-plasma “dry” technology are discussed. The temperature distributions on the electrode-collector and in the cooling stream of the electrode-collector water cooling system are calculated. The operating parameters of the technology for decontamination of irradiated reactor graphite and nuclear power plant metal structures are found: inert gas pressure 0.1–1 atm, current density of a shortened discharge 0.1–1 A/cm2, discharge voltage 100–1000 V. It is found that at a power density of a shortened discharge of 1 × 105, 2 × 105, 5 × 105 and 1 × 106 W/m2, water cooling flow rate of about 1 m/s is required to cool the electrode-collector.