The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jan. 16, 1990
Filed:
Sep. 21, 1988
David V Lambert, St. Matthews, SC (US);
Theodore W Nylund, Columbia, SC (US);
John W Byers, West Columbia, SC (US);
Damon E Haley, Jr, Sumter, SC (US);
Joseph V Cioffi, Cola, SC (US);
Westinghouse Electric Corp., Pittsburgh, PA (US);
Abstract
Apparatus for loading fuel rods in a desired enrichment pattern includes a carrousel, an elongated fuel rod storage magazine, and a fuel rod verify and feed workstation and a magazine holder and indexing mechanism disposed between the carrousel and the magazine. The carrousel has a plurality of gondolas movable mounted thereon for stocking fuel rods of known enrichments. The magazine defines a matrix of elongated slots open at their forward ends for receiving fuel rods. The workstation defines a fuel rod feed path extending between the carrousel and the magazine and is adapted to receive successively one at a time along the feed path at its upstream end fuel rods from selected ones of the carrousel gondolas. The workstation includes an optical scanning and reading unit located along the feed path for verifying the identity of the fuel rods successively one at a time and a fuel rod feeding mechanism for successively feeding one at a time along the feed path the verified fuel rods into selected ones of the slots in the magazine. The magazine holder and indexing mechanism movably supports the magazine and is actuatable for moving the magazine along X-Y axes to successively align one at a time selected ones of its slots with the feed path for loading in the magazine the successive fuel rods in a desired enrichment pattern.