During the decommissioning of a nuclear power plant, the structures must be dismantled to a disposal size. Thermal cutting methods are used to reduce metal structures to a disposal size. When metal is cut using thermal cutting methods, aerosols of 1 μm or less are generated. To protect workers from aerosols in the work environment during cutting, it is necessary to understand the characteristics of the aerosols generated during the cutting process. In this study, changes in aerosol characteristics in the working environment were observed during metal thermal cutting. The cutting was done using the plasma arc cutting method. To simulate the aerosols generated during metal cutting in the decommissioning of a nuclear power plant, a non-radioactive stainless steel plate with a thickness of 20 mm was cut. The cutting condition was set to plasma current: 80 A cutting speed: 100 mm/min. The aerosols generated during cutting were measured using a highresolution aerosol measurement device called HR-ELPI+ (Dekati®). The HR-ELPI+ is an instrument that can measure the range of aerodynamic diameter from 0.006 μm to 10 μm divided into 500 channels. Using the HR-ELPI+, the number concentration of aerosols generated during the cutting process was measured in real-time. We measured the aerosols generated during cutting at regular intervals from the beginning of cutting. The analyzed aerosol concentration increased almost 10 times, from 5.22×106 [1/cm3] at the start of cutting to 6.03×107 [1/cm3] at the end. To investigate the characteristics of the distribution, we calculated the Count Median Aerodynamic Diameter (CMAD), which showed that the overall diameter of the aerosol increased from 0.0848 μm at the start of cutting to 0.1247 μm at the end of the cutting. The calculation results were compared with the concentration by diameter over time. During the cutting process, particles with a diameter of 0.06 μm or smaller were continuously measured. In comparison, particles with a diameter of 0.2 μm or larger were found to increase in concentration after a certain time following the start of cutting. In addition, when the aerosol was measured after the cutting process had ended, particles with a diameter of 0.06 μm or less, which were measured during cutting, were hardly detected. These results show that the nucleation-sized aerosols are generated during the cutting process, which can explain the measurement of small particles at the beginning of cutting. In addition, it can be speculated that the generated aerosols undergo a process of growth by contact with the atmosphere. This study presents the results of real-time aerosol analysis during the plasma arc cutting of stainless steel. This study shows the generation of nucleation-sized particles at the beginning of the cutting process and the subsequent increase in the aerosol particle size over time at the worksite. The analysis results can characterize the size of aerosol particles that workers may inhale during the dismantling of nuclear power plants.

When decommissioning a nuclear power plant, the structure must be made to a disposable size. In general, the cutting process is essential when dismantling a nuclear power plant. Mainly, thermal cutting method is used to cutting metal structures. The aerosols generated during thermal cutting have a size distribution of less than 1 μm. The contaminated structures are able to generate radioactive aerosols in the decommissioning. Radioactive aerosols of 1 μm or less are deposited in the respiratory tract by workers’ breathing, causing the possibility of internal exposure. Therefore, workers must be protected from the risk of exposure to radioactive aerosols. Prior knowledge of aerosols generated during metal cutting is important to ensure worker safety. In this study, the physical and chemical properties of the aerosol were evaluated by measuring the number and mass concentrations of aerosols generated when cutting SUS304 and SA508 using the laser cutting method. High-resolution aerosol measuring equipment (HR-ELPI+, DEKATI) was used to measure the concentration of aerosols. The HR-ELPI+ is an impactor-type aerosol measuring equipment that measures the aerosol number concentration distribution in the aerodynamic diameter range of 6 nm to 10 um in real-time. And analyze the mass concentration of the aerosol according to the diameter range through the impactor. ICP-MS was used for elemental mass concentration analysis in the aerosol. Analytical elements were Fe, Cr, Ni and Mn. For the evaluation of physical and chemical properties, the MMAD of each element and CMAD were calculated in the aerosol distribution. Under the same cutting conditions, it was confirmed that the number concentration of aerosols generated from both materials had a uni-modal distribution with a peak around 0.1 um. CMAD was calculated to be 0.072 um for both SUS304 and SA508. The trend of the CMAD calculation results is the same even when the cutting conditions are changed. In the case of MMAD, it was confirmed that SUS304 had an MMAD of around 0.1 μm in size for only Fe, Cr and Mn. And SA508, Fe, Cr, Ni and Mn were all confirmed to have MMAD around 0.1 μm in size. The results of this study show that a lot of aerosols in the range of less than 1 μm, especially around 0.1 μm in size, are generated when metal is cut using laser cutting. Therefore, in order to protect the internal exposure of workers to laser metal cutting when decommissioning NPPs, it is necessary to protect from nano-sized aerosols beyond micron size.

In thermal cutting process, gas flow injected from the nozzle has a significant effect on the cutting materials. The gas flow is difficult to observe gases are transparent, therefore, in this study, Schlieren method was adopted to visualize the gas flow inside the kerf. The kerf shape was inserted between two slices of transparent glass in order to imitate the real cutting environment. In order to get the flow characteristics, a high speed camera was equipped and the image processing was applied to compare the before and after injection images. As a result, the method for visualizing gas flow was successfully developed and also expected to be applied to the analysis of purging gas in various welding environments.