Nuclear Plant Journal, March-April 2014 NuclearPlantJournal.com
41
misalignment when the upper internals
were set in the vessel in the previous
refueling outage. It is significant to note
that during the development of the capture
tooling, two other parallel efforts were
in progress by this same Dominion/
Westinghouse project team. The first
effort was validation and procurement
of a Westinghouse guide pin measuring
campaign and tooling. This was required
to assess the subject guide pins as well as
to support the corrective action process
extent of condition verification that no
other guide pins were damaged. This
effort included potential guide pin in-
situ machining and straightening, with
requisite evaluation, procedures and work
control process. Second, efforts were
launched in parallel to the capture tooling
development to have Westinghouse
prepare tooling and qualify a process for
EDM (electric discharge machining) of
the guide pins to shorten or remove them
in the event they were severely damaged.
Ultimately the pins were determined to be
acceptable for reuse after straightening
and no other pins were found damaged.
The EDM process was not required.
Transferability
The key lessons from this event
are directly transferrable to the entire
industry. First, having written processes
and procedures that address emergent
conditions in addition to well understood
processes for normal conditions are key to
navigating an unusual event. Rigorous use
and compliance to these processes ensure
that risk, safety and design aspects are
appropriately considered. Second, multi-
discipline teams within the utility staff
and strong working relationships formed
with external parties early in response to
an event immediately provide benefits in
OE, creative thinking and streamlining the
effort. Third, parallel efforts to readjust
outage plans, working elements of the
process in parallel and continuous updates
to management, stakeholders and the
organization ensure that the effects of the
emergent challenge are minimized. Lastly,
a demonstrated methodology that can be
designed, tested, and rapidly deployed
to capture fuel assemblies is available to
others.
Contact: Rob Garver, Dominion,
8 7 7 - 4 S I - P O W E R
( 8 7 7 - 4 7 4 - 7 6 9 3 )
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