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:
Dec. 25, 1990
Filed:
Apr. 03, 1990
Frederick C Schoenig, Jr, Wilmington, NC (US);
David G Tashjian, Wilmington, NC (US);
Archie C Lamb, Wilmington, NC (US);
Barry S Guilliams, Wilmington, NC (US);
George W Tunnell, Foster City, CA (US);
Edward W Meeka, Pleasanton, CA (US);
General Electric Company, San Jose, CA (US);
Abstract
Pellet trays bearing rows of fuel pellets of known enrichment concentrations are retrieved from selected storage elevators and successively conveyed to a zone makeup machine. Parallel rows of pellets are raked from each tray and advanced over a longitudinally elongated, grooved loading surface into abutment with a selectively longitudinally positioned stop. A zone makeup carriage makes up the pellet rows to a prescribed, common zone length, which are then weighted and advanced in parallel by a vibratory loader into a plurality of cladding tubes arranged in parallel loading positions by tube handling apparatus. Overall operation is coordinated by a system controller to concurrently load the cladding tubes with multiple pellet zones of varying enrichments and lengths in automated fashion.