Successful removal of more than 200 spent HEU fuel assemblies from the high flux reactor at Petten

Earlier this year, a shipment of 210 spent Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) Material Test Reactor (MTR) fuel assemblies representing more than 100kg of HEU (pre-irradiation) were shipped from the High Flux Reactor (HFR) in Petten, Netherlands to the US Department of Energy's Savannah River Site. The HFR is owned by the European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC) while the Nuclear Research and consultancy Group (NRG) is the reactor operator and license holder. Since the start of the Foreign Research Reactor Program in 1996, this was the largest shipment of MTR fuel elements originating from a single facility. A total of five NAC-LWT casks were used to support this shipment. Multiple technical, licensing, interface and scheduling challenges needed to be overcome to meet the project objectives. During the five months of project planning and execution, the project team (JRC, NRG, Transrad, NAC, DOE and Westinghouse) has been working in close cooperation and good spirit to achieve a safe and successful shipment. The paper presents how the team completed this important shipment for the future of the HFR. (author)