Siemens Aktiengesellschaft

Kraftwerk Union Aktiengesellschaft

Franz Rohr

Klaus Knecht

Georg Gebhard

A pushing device for removing spent fuel rods from a nuclear reactor fuel assembly comprises a plurality of axially shiftable rods disposed in the same geometric pattern and with the same pitch as the fuel rods. The push rods are mounted at their upper ends to a pressure strip or plate and traverse at their lower ends bores in a guide plate fixed via guide rods to a base plate located on the other side of the pressure plate, the pressure plate being movably secured to the guide rods for linear motion between the base plate and the guide plate. A drive mounted to the base plate is connected to the pressure plate for shifting the latter, while a safety mechanism is provided for interrupting the motion of a push rod if the respective fuel rod is jammed in the fuel assembly.

Pushing device for sliding fuel rods out of a nuclear reactor fuel

A packing assembly comprises a transport and storage container with a jacket, bottom and a head part for receiving the fuel rods from preferably two nuclear reactor fuel assemblies and arranging the rods in the densest possible packing, preferably in a hexagonal array packing. The packing assembly further comprises a dense-packing device surrounding the transport and storage container and a guide tube bundle or baffle plate guide for introducing the fuel rods from a fuel assembly into the dense-packing device. The transport and storage container and the dense-packing device are designed so that the bottom of the container can be decoupled therefrom and inserted into the dense-packing device. The guide tube bundle or baffle plate guide is removably insertable into the dense-packing device. The dense-packing device includes clamping means for compressing the introduced fuel rods into a hexagonal array. Upon insertion of the jacket of the transport and storage container into the dense-packing device and coupling of the jacket to the bottom element, the densely packed fuel rod bundle can be removed from the dense-packing device.

Arrangement for receiving and method for handling spent nuclear reactor

A method for loading a container with rods of nuclear reactor fuel assemblies having mutually parallel longitudinal axes and containing nuclear fuel or neutron absorption material, which includes the steps of loading the container initially with dummies corresponding to the rods in a given dense packing arrangement, and thereafter inserting the rods in axial direction thereof into the given dense packing arrangement so as to replace the dummies; and a device for carrying out the method.

Method for loading a container with rods of nuclear reactor fuel

Alignment tool for the remotely controlled recalibration of resilient protruding contact dimples or springs in substantially square spacer grid meshes of nuclear reactor fuel assemblies, including an outer centering tube adapted to the cross section of a spacer mesh and rigid and resilient contact dimples protruding into the interior of the mesh in given directions, the outer centering tube having a window formed therein in the vicinity of the contact dimple, a gripper-actuating tube being concentrically surrounded by and axially movable within the outer centering tube, a pendulum rod having a free end and being disposed in the interior of the gripper-actuating tube and being axially fixed relative to the gripper-actuating tube and able to oscillate in the given protrusion direction of the resilient contact dimple to be recalibrated, a gripper attached to the free end of the pendulum rod, a restoring spring for exerting pressure on the gripper, and a run-on incline formed on the pendulum rod being engageable with the gripper-actuating tube over and above the contact dimple for radial displacement of the gripper against the pressure of the restoring spring.

Growing community of inventors

Erlangen, Germany

Franz Rohr