Three Mile Island Unit 2 Preparations for Defueling

The accident at Three Mile Island Unit 2 left the reactor core in a severely degraded condition. Core removal methods and equipment designed for an undamaged reactor refueling required extensive modification. Fuel debris containments, tooling, contamination control, and water processing methods were tailored to known and postulated core conditions using primarily manual rather than robotic methods. Flexibility was a key element in the equipment design since little definitive data on reactor physical conditions were available.