30 Oct Moon containers are in house

The first shipment of the many specially designed steel containers to be supplied by Bladt Industries has now arrived at DD. Four so-called moon containers were included in the shipment.

S Although at first glance the moon containers may resemble something from a Jules Verne novel, the nickname is not due to them going for a trip into space. On the other hand, they must be lowered into the depths of a container.

Since autumn 2014, a large container has housed a 17 ton heavy and 21/2 meter wide shielding ring that has sat around the top of the DR 3 reactor tank. The space in and around the ring must also be utilized, and the corners of the container have already been filled by custom-made triangle frames. This has placed a number of pipes that have been mounted on top of the fuel elements.

The newly arrived moon containers are four quarters of moons that exactly fit into the center of the shielding ring. They will be filled with even more of the same kind of pipes.

But inside the circle of quarter moons? Here there is just room for another of the specially designed containers à la Jules Verne. The winged cylinder must be filled with bits of thin steel rods that have absorbed some radiation in the reactor. When the cylinder is lowered down as the last piece, the four wings will wedge themselves in between the lunar containers and ensure that the entire container's puzzle of radioactive elements is firmly anchored in the shielding.