Westinghouse Electric Corporation

George W Norris

Richard M Kobuck

John J Wilhelm

Herbert E Ferree

Ronald F Antol

Arthur F Jacobs

Anoop Kapoor

William J Varley

The fuel assembly skeleton compaction system provides a means for remotely dismantling an irradiated nuclear fuel assembly skeleton once the nuclear fuel rods have been removed therefrom while the skeleton remains submerged in a coolant. The system comprises a feed chamber for holding the spent fuel assembly skeleton and for feeding a spent fuel assembly skeleton into a shear chamber which is arranged near the feed chamber. The shear chamber contains a shearing device for shearing the skeleton into small pieces and for moving the pieces of the skeleton into a compaction chamber which is located adjacent to the shear chamber. The compaction chamber contains a compaction cylinder for compacting the pieces of the skeleton introduced thereinto. A storage canister is located below the compaction chamber such that when the slide of the compaction chamber is opened, the compacted pieces of the skeleton may be pushed into the storage canister. When the storage canister is filled, it may be remotely removed and replaced with an empty canister.

Fuel assembly skeleton compaction

A robotic manipulator wrist has one part 10 rotatable relative to the other part 12 of the wrist, and gear trains 16, 18, 20, operates to rotate the end effector shaft 14 when a brake 36 is applied to prevent relative movement between the two parts 10 and 12, and to rotate one part 10 relative to the other part 12 when a second brake 38 is applied to prevent relative movement between the end effector gear 18 and the intermediate gear 16.

Robotic wrist

Apparatus for remote inspection of annular curved ridge welds securing plugs in heat transfer tubes in a nuclear steam generator. Included in such apparatus is a small sized television camera, an annular image transformation lens of greater size than the observed weld for presenting a flattened expanded image of such weld to the camera, a circular array of work-illumination lamps at the input end of the camera, and a hollow cylindrical light conductive member mounted at its one end on the input end of the camera in exposure to the lamps and mounting the image transformation lens on its opposite end for proximity to the annular weld being inspected.

Tube plug weld inspection apparatus

Growing community of inventors

Wilkins Township, PA, United States of America

George W Norris