The top of Danish Reactor 3 is now naked and exposed, ready to be cut up.

V By the beginning of 2019, the inner parts of the reactor – the reactor tank itself, a graphite reflector and an associated layer of lead – were cut open, lifted out and packed in containers (see more here). The following months have been spent cleaning away and cleaning after this work and getting ready for the next phase, the cutting of the outer parts.

First, the transparent house- built on top of the reactor's moving lid in 2015 - was dismantled. The two airtight chambers of the house in plexiglass contained a manipulator arm and a crane that had been used for the remote-controlled manoeuvres, respectively, but this equipment was not to be used in the next phase.

Once the moving lid had been freed from its house on its back, it was disconnected from all systems and disassembled. Below it was an old reactor ring and a previous prop, both of which had to be removed. Instead, a new removable plug was inserted to act as a shield during the cutting of the reactor's outer parts.

At the foot of the reactor stood a control truck from which the employees had controlled the remotely operated equipment. This wagon was now cleaned and driven outside. On the whole, all removed items were cleaned as far as possible, but some had to be stored as waste.

After a thorough clean-up and cleaning in the reactor building, it was time to remove four large metal cylinders – the last parts that had to be removed from the reactor block's concrete before cutting. The cylinders each contained some ion chambers that had measured the flux (ionisation per unit of time) during the operation time.

As the last significant step this time, the once-cover of the reactor block's top has just been lowered. It was intended at the time as a moving tyre that could be moved up and down as needed, but in reality it has never moved as much as one centimeter – until now. A crane lifted away the numbered cover plates, after which the fittings and load-bearing elements were lowered about one and a half metres and the cover plates came back into place. However, it took a lot of adjustment to make the 60-year-old structure mace, but now the top of the reactor block is exposed and ready for the next phase.

See half a year's work on strewn reactor top, compressed to under three minutes (NB! The video is without sound):