Nuclear Plant Journal, March-April 2016 NuclearPlantJournal.com
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conditions that the team will experience
when conducting the cavitation peening
at Byron in spring 2016.
Following
work
at
Byron’s
Unit 2, AREVA will complete cavitation
peening on Unit 1 as well as at Exelon’s
Braidwood Generating Station Units 1
and 2. Exelon’s Byron and Braidwood
generating stations each have two
pressurized water reactors that generate
enough low-carbon electricity to power
more than four million American homes.
Contact: Curtis Roberts, AREVA,
Fuel Assemblies
AREVA NP recently delivered
the first boiling water reactor (BWR)
ATRIUM 10XM fuel assemblies in the
United States equipped with its new third
generation FUELGUARD™ (3GFG)
debris filter. This advanced filter design
increases operational reliability by
capturing all debris large enough to cause
damage to the fuel rod array from the
reactor water flow.
Building on the reliability of
AREVA’s second generation filter,
the 3GFG was originally designed as
a standard component on AREVA’s
ATRIUM™ 11 fuel design, which
began operating in a U.S. reactor for the
first time in 2015. The debris filter was
recently modified to retrofit the ATRIUM
10XM fuel structure, optimizing the
component for both common types of
fuel structures: 10x10 and 11x11.
Following their global introduction
in 2009, AREVA’s second generation
debris filters have been used in more than
4,500 BWR fuel assemblies and none
have experienced fuel rod failures arising
from debris passing through the filter.
Since
patenting
the
first
FUELGUARD design in 1991, AREVA
has delivered more than 22,000 debris
filters to 33 reactors worldwide.
Contact: Curtis Roberts, AREVA,
SMR Project
Bechtel
and BWX Technologies, Inc.
have announced a new agreement to pursue
accelerated development of the world’s
first commercially viable Generation III++
small modular nuclear reactor.
Bechtel will lead the program and
leverage the company’s historic strengths
in engineering, licensing, procurement,
construction, and project management.
BWXTwill focus on designing and testing
the nuclear steam supply system. Both
companies will collaborate to prepare
a design certification application to the
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Known as Generation mPower,
the project is centered on the BWXT
mPower
TM
reactor—a 195-megawatt-
electric power plant that will be a safe,
cost-competitive, and innovative solution
to provide low-carbon electricity—
addressing the growing challenges
of climate change and sustainable
development.
Contact: Fred deSousa, Bechtel,
telephone: (703) 429-6435.
Milestone
GE Hitachi’s
remotely-operated
Stinger In-Vessel Visual Inspection
(IVVI) tool has successfully facilitated the
examination of more than 1,000 nuclear
reactor components. GEH recently
utilized Stinger during a refueling outage
