Operation Results on Safety Systems of Tritium Process Laboratory in Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute

The TPL (Tritium Process Laboratory) at the JAERI (Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute) has been the only facility using over 1 gram of tritium for the fusion research in Japan. The construction of the building and the safety systems was completed until 1985. The operations of the safety systems with tritium have been started from March 1988. The amount of tritium held at the TPL was 19.1 PBq at March 2001. The average tritium concentration in a stream from a stack of the TPL to environment was 2.3x10⁻⁵Bq/cm³; and is 1/200 smaller than that of the regulation value for the concentration of HTO in the air. A record for the safety operation of tritium has thus been accumulated. The failure data of several main components of the TPL was also obtained giving valuable data of the tritium operation experience.