Westinghouse Electric Corporation

Ronald P Knott

Robert K Gjertsen

James A Sparrow

John F Wilson

Edmund E DeMario

Thomas R Freeman

A reconstitutable control assembly has a spider structure which supports control rods by detachable attachment joints. Each attachment joint includes a hollow connecting finger on the spider structure and an elongated detachable split upper end plug on each control rod. The split upper end plug includes a pair of separate upper and lower plug portions. The upper plug portion has upper, middle and lower sections, whereas the lower plug portion has upper, middle and lower segments. The upper section of the upper plug portion is rigidly attached to the connecting finger on the spider structure, whereas the lower segment of the lower plug portion is rigidly connected to the control rod. Also, the lower section of the upper plug portion and the middle segment of the lower plug portion have complementary threads defined thereon for rigidly threadably attaching the upper and lower plug portions to one another. Two embodiments of locking features can be used in conjunction with the upper and lower plug portions for locking them together so as to resist their unthreading from one another.

Reconstitutable control assembly having removable control rods with

A fuel assembly, particularly advantageous for use with a BWR, wherein the fuel bundle is adapted to be inserted into an envelope formed from a flow channel and a lower nozzle assembly. The fuel bundle is essentially axially symmetrical having identical top and bottom tie plates. Within the fuel bundle, alternate fission gas plenums are disposed at the top and bottom of the bundle respectively. During the refueling operation, the fuel bundle is removed from the reactor core, axially inverted and reinserted into the core for continued burn up. The invention takes advantage of the reactivity increase possible in a BWR when a partially burned fuel bundle is inverted.

Reversible BWR fuel assembly and method of using same

A nuclear fuel spacer grid with improved outer straps. The grid has an egg-crate array of interleaved grid straps creating cells for enclosing the fuel rods. The grid also has four outer straps connected together in a square-shaped array surrounding the grid strap's heightwise edges. The outer straps have a central portion to which is attached the grid straps' heightwise edges. The outer straps also have a top and a bottom resilient lengthwise border portion extending vertically beyond and horizontally outwardly beyond their associated outer straps central portions.

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Irmo, SC, United States of America

Ronald P Knott