Design, Construction and Performance Test of Small Scale Experimental System for Tritium Gas

Abstract

An experimental system for tritium gas in small scale handling has been designed and constructed which consists of glove box, tritium removal system, tritium gas generating system and tritium gas subdivide system. The volume of the glove box is about 2m³, and the processing flow rate of the tritium removal system is 3.8m³/h. Tritium generating system is composed of a heating furnace, a gas reservoir, an ionization chamber and a vacuum pump. Subdivide system is equipped with a teopler pump for taking out some parts (less than 50mCi) of tritium gas from the tritium generating system or from carrier free tritium ampoule to out of the glove box. The results of performance test showed that all these systems can be operated satisfactorily for each object. The leak rate of tritium from the connecting parts of tritium ampoule was confirmed to be very small, thus the tritium ampoule could be used with high safety.