| 31. | Each spent fuel assembly is made up of pencil-thick metal rods filled with eraser-sized pellets of waste.
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| 32. | In essence, the vendors make a model of the fuel assembly but power it with resistive heaters.
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| 33. | Earlier Wednesday, technicians placed two additional metal straps around the fuel assembly to give it greater support.
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| 34. | In addition, spent fuel assemblies are used to provide a gamma irradiation facility in the reactor pool.
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| 35. | Each pool contains about 800 fuel assemblies.
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| 36. | All rods of a fuel assembly are held in place with 10 stainless steel spacers separated by distance.
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| 37. | This facility, treating 2500 fuel assemblies per year, would be the first of its kind for RBMK fuel.
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| 38. | In addition to the regular fuel assemblies, there are instrumented ones, containing neutron flux detectors in the central carrier.
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| 39. | Palo Verde officials plan to remove a stuck radioactive-fuel assembly in the Unit 2 reactor late Tuesday or Wednesday.
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| 40. | The fuel assemblies consist of two sets ( " sub-assemblies " ) with 18 fuel rods and 1 carrier rod.
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