UKAEA ^{A World Leader in Decommissioning & Waste Management.}

The download above requires the free Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Project background

The Alpha Materials Laboratory (AML) was built in 1961 and commissioned in 1963. The two-storey building was used for the manufacture of mixed oxide fuel for use in reactor physics experiments. Many tonnes of plutonium passed through the building until it ceased commercial operations in the early 1990s.

Key challenges

Our aim was to remove all systems, facilities and services and to demolish all buildings, creating a greenfield site. This was the first time that a major UK plutonium facility had been decommissioned, and it posed major technical challenges.

The key challenge was decontaminating suites of glove boxes and the ventilation plant, while minimising the production of any waste materials.

Our approach

We realised that the main financial risk of the project was the potential for large volumes of plutonium contaminated material (PCM) waste to be generated. To ensure that waste would be managed correctly, we asked contractors to bid to work on the project – highlighting the need for an innovative approach to the problem. The contractor we appointed worked to our safety management system, under our close supervision. Once the decontamination phase of the work was completed to our standards, we adopted conventional demolition techniques to remove the shell of the building.

The results

This was a pioneering project – the UK’s first major plutonium facility to be decommissioned. We successfully created a greenfield site with no significant safety or environmental incidents.

The project was completed over nine years, and we decommissioned 75 glove boxes in the first four years of the project. AML achieved greenfield status in 1999.