A CNC milling machine in NRG's Hot Cell Laboratories

Preparations are in progress to install a new milling machine in the NRG's hot cells facility in the course of this year. The milling machine is CNC controlled and adapted for use in a hot cell environment. Special arrangements are made to comply for this purpose. Since a number of components are not fully resistant to radiation, the machine is wheeled allowing it to be removed from the hot cell if not needed. Some technical specifications from the various manufacturers will be discussed which finally lead to the selected supplier. Primary, this only concerns the flexibility of the total equipment to adapt for remote control and not the general technical aspects of the equipment. The machine will be used mainly to manufacture mechanical testing samples form irradiated materials, obtained from both welding experiments and other irradiated components. Special auxiliary tools are made for this purpose to facilitate the machining of the samples. Next the convenience to program the system for machining mechanical testing samples to meet the specified requirements is also important. Before installing the equipment in the hot cell a try out is performed to evaluate the system. (Author)