Irradiation test for ACP equipment components

This paper deals with the radiation effects on the advanced spent fuel conditioning process facility (ACPF) components which are mainly used for the actuating and sensing from the process equipment devised for an advanced spent fuel conditioning process (ACP). Test components have a higher priority from aspect of a reliability so their degradation or failure is able to critically affect the performance of the ACP equipment. Components that we chose for the irradiation tests were the AC servo motor, potentiometer, thermocouples, accelerometer and CCD camera. Since gamma rays among various radioactive rays are the most significant to electric, electronic and robotic components, we tested them by using a gamma irradiation facility. Others except for the CCD camera showed a very high radiation hardening characteristic. Each component’s characteristic change could be traced, and the corresponding threshold values were determined. These test results could be used as valuable reference data to evaluate components reliability when it is used in a high radiation environment.