The Babcock & Wilcox Company

B&w Fuel Company

Thomas J Smentek

Ronald N Roseveare

Floyd A Fasnacht

Orville L Lindsey

Michael G Hacker

An inspection device for the upper internals of a nuclear reactor comprising an elongated probe body which is lowered through a central aperture in a support plate that forms part of the upper internals and includes a plurality of vertically extending control rod apertures. Radial channels extend outwardly from the central aperture, each communicating with corresponding control rod apertures. A radially moveable transducer is mounted to the probe body and the latter is rotatable to a position for accessing each channel for radially moving the transducer into the channel. The transducer detects the profile of the channel. An area of particular interest is the area of communication between the channels and the control rod apertures. This area is susceptible to wear due to vibrations of the control rods.

Reactor upper internals inspection device

A nuclear fuel rod consolidation structure. A storage canister has a grid structure positioned in its interior. The grid structure is provided with a plurality of hexagonally shaped individual cells in a triangular pitch array. This provides nearly a two to one consolidation ratio. The grid structure provides positive radial support to the fuel rods to maintain the triangular pitch array if the canister is not fully loaded or some of the fuel rods are removed. The positive guidance allows use of the existing rod pulling device for loading fuel rods into the structure.

Fuel rod consolidation structure

A fuel rod alignment template and method for loading fuel rods in a nuclear fuel assembly. Front and rear guide plates are provided with a plurality of holes corresponding to cells in the fuel assembly to be loaded. The guide plates are rigidly connected together by connecting rods that extend beyond the front guide plate and are sized to be received in the guide tubes of the fuel assembly. When attached to the fuel assembly with the front guide plate abutting the guide tubes the holes in the guide plates and cells in the grid assemblies of the fuel assembly are in coaxial alignment. This provides positive guidance to the fuel rods as they are inserted into the fuel assembly to prevent mis-tracking and damage to the fuel assembly.

Fuel rod alignment template

A contact ultrasonic transducer head assembly. A stationary housing is adapted to be fitted to a remotely operated manipulator. A movable assembly slidably received by the stationary housing has a plurality of independently suspended ultrasonic transducers mounted thereon. A position encoder mounted in the movable assembly monitors movement within the stationary housing. A limit switch is used to electrically disable the remotely operated manipulator when the movable assembly slides a predetermined distance into the stationary housing to prevent damage to the transducers or the surface being inspected.

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Forest, VA, United States of America

Thomas J Smentek