Westinghouse Electric Corporation

William M Flynn

Octavio J Machado

Ray L Congleton

Clifford W Henry

Harry E Flanders, Jr

Larry W Booker

A spent fuel rack for storing fresh fuel assemblies, or spent fuel assemblies removed from a nuclear reactor, which includes a base plate having multiple cells of modular construction welded at their bottom ends to the plate. The cells are formed of L-shaped sections having walls which support neutron absorbing material, and the walls of one cell are common to the adjacent cells. The base plate includes openings primarily for receiving the bottom nozzle of a fuel assembly, but they further serve as access openings for apparatus used for leveling the base plate. There is also means for receiving and locking the engaging mechanism of lifting apparatus which means is wholly within the periphery of the base plate.

Spent fuel storage rack

A spent fuel rack for storing fresh fuel assemblies, or spent fuel assemblies removed from a nuclear reactor, which includes a base plate having multiple cells of modular construction welded at their bottom ends to the plate. The cells are formed of L-shaped sections having walls which support neutron absorbing material, and the walls of one cell are common to the adjacent cells. The base plate includes openings primarily for receiving the bottom nozzle of a fuel assembly, but they further serve as access openings for apparatus used for leveling the base plate and for lifting and transferring the base plate with or without cells thereon, to a different area.

Spent fuel storage rack for BWR fuel assemblies

Spent fuel racks for housing new or spent fuel assemblies at a nuclear reactor site. The racks are made to modular design and include upper and lower grid structures which provide aligned square openings. A container or cell shaped to the size of a fuel assembly fits in each of the aligned square openings. To provide verticality to the aligned and uniformly spaced cells, leveling pads beneath the base plate supporting the cells are adjustable vertically to cause the base plate to assume a horizontal plane and thereby align cell longitudinal axis with a vertical plane.

Nuclear reactor spent fuel storage rack

A cell for a spent fuel rack includes a sheet metal element that is bent to provide four flat wall portions. The wall portions are joined at bent regions which provide protruding corners between three of the wall portions, the protruding corners having a short radius of curvature. A rod is welded at the fourth corner of the cell, preferably at the time the cell is manufactured. A sheet of neutron poison is affixed to each wall portion by a wrapper. The protruding cell corners and pre-installed rod facilitate fabrication the spent fuel rack by permitting cells to be welded directly together. The protruding corners may extend for substantially the entire height of the cell, or they may have segments which are spaced apart. The bent regions may also include flat platform portions which simplify the construction of the wrappers.

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Pensacola, FL, United States of America

William M Flynn