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NuclearPlantJournal.com Nuclear Plant Journal, May-June 2015
New Products,
Services &
Contracts
New Products
Remotely Operated Tool
GEHitachi Nuclear Energy
(GEH),
in coordination with Exelon Generation,
unveiled a new, innovative remotely-
operated tool that has successfully
enabled nuclear technicians to complete
tasks at the bottom of nuclear reactors
more quickly and safely.
This new tool remotely disconnects
– uncouples - control rods from their
associated blades at the bottom of the
reactor during preventative maintenance.
Utilizing the battery-powered, wireless
device minimizes the amount of radiation
that workers are exposed to and allows
parallel work activities to take place
under the reactor pressure vessel during
service outages. The tool has been shown
to reduce radiation dose associated with
uncoupling by as much as 60 percent.
The tool, based on 3-D printed
prototypes created on-site at GEH’s
world headquarters in Wilmington, North
Carolina, has been successfully deployed
during recent maintenance work at the
Dresden Generating Station in Morris,
Illinois and the Peach Bottom Atomic
Power Station in Delta, Pennsylvania. A
total of 19 drives were uncoupled with
the tool at Peach Bottom and 25 were
uncoupled at Dresden.
In order to remove control rod blades
during service outages, the blades must
be uncoupled from drive mechanisms
underneath the reactor pressure vessel. Any
blades that are not successfully uncoupled
from underneath the vessel must be
uncoupled from a refueling floor above the
vessel, a more time consuming process.
Because of the tool’s effectiveness it
was not necessary to conduct any uncoupling
from the refueling floor during the Dresden
and Peach Bottom outages. This new tool
replaces a much more labor-intensive
process involving floor jacks and the removal
of large quantities of steel plates.
Contact: Jon Allen, telephone: (910)
Services
Pressurized Water
Reactor
GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy
(GEH) announced plans to begin offering
refueling services to customers operating
Pressurized Water Reactors (PWRs).
PWRs account for roughly two-
thirds of nuclear reactors operating
globally and represent a significant
opportunity for GEH, the company that
connected the first nuclear reactor to a
commercial electricity grid in Vallecitos,
Calif., in 1957.
The announcement includes an
agreement with Exelon Generation,
the nation’s largest operator of nuclear
plants, to conduct PWR refueling work.
The outage team that GEH will bring to
this project has a collective 300+ years’ of
experience servicing PWRs in a variety of
functions including project management,
planning, supervision, fuel movement
and vessel disassembly and reassembly.
Team members were recently trained at
an Exelon facility in accordance with the
company’s standards.
As the original equipment
manufacturer of more than 60 boiling
water reactors (BWRs) globally, GEH
currently services and fuels many BWRs
in operation today. The company intends
to introduce advanced services offerings
to enhance PWR outage performance.
Contact: Jon Allen, telephone: (910)
Contracts
Engineer of Choice
AREVA Inc
. was recently chosen
by several U.S. utilities as their Engineer
of Choice (EOC) to provide customized
engineering services in support of their
nuclear reactor operations.
AREVA
offers
the
only
comprehensive EOC contracts for
the U.S. nuclear market, including
engineering services for nuclear steam
supply systems (NSSS), balance of plant
(BOP), commercial grade dedication,
and component repair and replacement,
as well as support for licensing and
regulatory affairs.
“UnderEngineer-of-Choice contracts
and major engineering services support,
we are able to work more closely with
our utility customers to anticipate their
challenges and offer innovative solutions
for the safe and efficient operation of
their reactors,” said Lee Williams, senior
vice president of Installed Base Projects
at AREVA Inc. “Our goal is to provide
our customers with engineering services
that are more competitive and better
adapted to the realities of their everyday
activities.”
Contact: Curtis Roberts, telephone:
Used Fuel Storage
Modules
AREVA TN
, a division of AREVA,
has been awarded a contract by Exelon
Nuclear to supply 30 additional
NUHOMS® HSM-H used fuel storage
modules at the Nine Mile Point Nuclear
Station in Scriba, NewYork.
Beginning mid-2015, the AREVA
TN team and local labor will construct
the horizontal storage modules (HSMs)
onsite to reduce the cost of transporting
the materials and to generate important
savings for the customer. These modules
will join the existing 40 units already at
Nine Mile Point, also constructed onsite
in 2011.
AREVA’s
robust
NUHOMS
®
HSM-H system offers high seismic
resistance through its thick reinforced
concrete components, low profile and
side-by-side rectangular modules. This
above ground horizontal system offers
greater structural stability, a high level of
shielding, and enables the ease of aging
management inspections.
Contact: Curtis Roberts, telephone:
Nuclear Construction
Burns &McDonnell
has won its first
major contract in the sensitive nuclear
construction industry, a special use
building that will house two redundant
power supply systems for the Los Alamos
National Laboratory in New Mexico.
The firm became eligible to build the
new Los Alamos facility after receiving
Nuclear Quality Assurance-1 (NQA-
1) certification from the Department of
Energy and the National Nuclear Security
Administration.
