According to the nuclear safety act, the enforcement regulations and the notification of the atomic energy commission, a preliminary decommissioning plan must be submitted at all domestic nuclear facilities. In accordance with this preliminary decommissioning plan, it is required to prepare eleven items from the outline of the decommissioning plan of the nuclear facility to the fire protection. Currently, the nuclear fuel cycle facility operated by the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) consists of a radioactive waste form test facility (RWFTF), a post irradiation examination facility (PIEF), a radioactive waste treatment facility (RWTF), and a radioactive waste storage facility (RWSF). The decommissioning strategies, decommissioning methods and dismantling activities of these nuclear facilities are described in this paper. The scope of decommissioning, the dismantling method, the final conditions of the site, the management of radioactive waste, and the cost of decommissioning are established in the decommissioning strategy. The decommissioning schedule, work order, basic principle and technical feasibility are determined at the method of decommissioning. The disinfection techniques and activity plans for facilities and sites contaminated with radioactive materials are described at the dismantling activity. Therefore, this paper describes the concept of decommissioning of the nuclear fuel cycle facilities and prepares a preliminary decommissioning plan to be prepared afterwards.

Kori Unit 1, the first commercial nuclear power plant (NPP) in Korea, was permanently shut down in 2017 and was scheduled for decommissioning. Various programs must be planned early in the decommissioning process to safely decommission NPPs. Radiological characterization is a key program in decommissioning and should be a high priority. Radiological characterization involves determining the decommissioning technology to be applied to a nuclear facility by identifying the radiation sources and radioactive contaminants present within the facility and assessing the extent and nature of the radioactive contaminants to be removed from the facility. This study introduces the regulatory requirements, procedures, and implementation methods for radiological characterization and proposes a methodology to link the results of radiological characterizations for each stage. To link radiological characteristics, this study proposes to conduct radiological characterization in the decommissioning phase to verify the results of radiological characterization in the transitional phase of decommissioning NPPs. This enables significantly reducing the scope and content of radiological characterization that must be performed in the decommissioning phase and maintaining the connection with the previous phase.