This ghostly scene shows the highly radioactive sodium residues that built up on insulation plates within the Prototype Fast Reactor (PFR) at Dounreay, Scotland.听
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Images like this one will help engineers plan to dismantle the 31 stainless steel insulation plates in the upper portion of the reactor. The images were taken using a 6 mm endoscope camera encased within a stainless steel tube which also incorporated a drilling function. The tool was inserted over two metres into the shut-down advanced reactor.
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Staff at Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd designed and tested the tool in-house. The company is responsible for the closure program at Dounreay, the UK's former centre of fast reactor research, which should see the site transformed and virtually clear by 2025.
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The PFR generated 254 MWe from 1976 until 1994. It was built as the prototype for a new generation of UK advanced reactors but did not perform to expectations.
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