The EOT crane was used to move large components, such as flasks, in a decontamination and waste handling facility at Dounreay, which was built to serve the site’s chemical plants and the adjacent Vulcan site. With the shutdown of the building, it became necessary to remove the EOT crane.
Dounreay was the UK’s centre of fast reactor research and development from 1955 until 1994, and is now being decommissioned and demolished by Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd (DSRL), the site licence company responsible for the closure programme at Dounreay. It is Scotland’s largest nuclear clean-up and demolition project.
Removal of the EOT crane was part of the work to reduce the radioactive hazard in the building, codenamed D1207, DSRL said.
The operation required detailed planning by DSRL and its decommissioning subcontractors. Before the EOT crane could be taken down, the entire surface of the ceiling had to be decontaminated, and the redundant ventilation extract ducting removed.
A roof hatch was installed to allow the Grove GMK5130 to access the building and handle the EOT crane as it was lowered from the ceiling.
The EOT crane weighed 8t and spanned the entire width of the building. As such, the DSRL team had to wait for optimum weather conditions to ensure the decommissioning occurred without error.
Once the cross-travel bogie was lifted off the EOT crane, riggers wearing radiation protection clothing and respirators fixed scaffold poles to the EOT crane in order to stop the slings used by the Grove GMK5130 to handle the EOT crane slipping.
The Grove GMK5130 then lifted the EOT crane off its rails, turned it 90° and lowered it to the floor.
The EOT crane and bogie were cut up and sprayed with two coats of metal paint, before being loaded into ISO containers for consignment as low level waste.
