Ge-Hitachi Nuclear Energy Americas LLC

David Jonathan Keck

Eric Paul Loewen

Robin D Sprague

Ronald Martin Horn

Henry Peter Offer

Nicholas O'Neill

A method for applying a coating to a defect area of a reactor component includes forming a patch on the reactor component at the defect area using a plasma-spray coating process. The plasma-spray coating process includes grounding the reactor component and a power supply of a plasma gun to a common ground such that a potential difference exists between the reactor component and a cathode of the plasma gun, and concurrently directing an ion-etching stream and a coating stream towards the region of the reactor component using the plasma gun while maintaining a desired distance between the plasma gun and the region of the reactor component. The directing the ion-etching stream includes heating the region of the reactor component using a plasma stream exiting a spray nozzle of the plasma gun. The coating stream includes droplets of a coating material.

Plasma spray coating for sealing a defect area in a workpiece

A method of storing a chimney assembly of a reactor pressure vessel during a nuclear reactor outage includes detaching a chimney barrel with upper chimney partitions therein from a top guide assembly of the reactor pressure vessel. A height of the upper chimney partitions is less than a height of the chimney barrel so as to leave a plenum region in a top section of the chimney barrel. The top guide assembly includes lower chimney partitions therein. The lower chimney partitions are removed from the top guide assembly and inserted into the plenum region of the chimney barrel so as to be on the upper chimney partitions. As a result, the chimney assembly can be stored in a relatively compact form during a reactor outage. The chimney assembly includes a combination of at least the chimney barrel, the upper chimney partitions, and the lower chimney partitions.

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Wilmington, NC, United States of America

David Jonathan Keck