Decommissioning of nuclear installations at CIEMAT

This report presents the work carried out by CIEMAT in the frame of decommissioning the research reactor JEN-1. Studies for evaluating different metal cutting techniques, including plasma-arc cutting, contact-arc cutting and mechanical saw cutting led to assessing the performance, advantages and associated problems for each technique. The main metallic material studied was aluminium, but some experiments with stainless steel were also conducted. Melting was also studied as a decontamination technique and as a way to reduce volume and facilitate the management of radioactive waste. (author)