Abstract: Method for manipulating and/or storing a nuclear reactor fuel assembly including an elongated skeleton structure with fuel rods and a holding device, which includes placing neutron-absorbing material adjacent the fuel rods, fastening a supplemental body with a handle to the skeleton structure, engaging the neutron-absorbing material with the supplemental body, and fitting a coupling part of the holding device to the handle, and a fuel assembly produced according to the method.

Abstract: In a nuclear reactor which is housed in a round building and which has a reactor pressure vessel in a reactor pool, a fuel element storage pool of arcuate outline, a gate-controlled channel interconnecting the two pools and an operating platform adjacent the pools, there is provided a fuel element exchange system which has a first fuel element exchange gantry supported on a column disposed in the center of the reactor building and on a rail which is held by the building wall and which is situated above the level of the operating platform, and a second fuel element exchange gantry supported under the first gantry in such a manner that the second gantry may freely pass under the first gantry. There is further provided a fuel element box-stripping machine at the storage pool immediately across from the channel within the operational range of both the first and the second gantries.