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:
Apr. 20, 1993
Filed:
Sep. 05, 1991
Edward S Walker, Wilmington, NC (US);
Wilbur L Croom, Hampstead, NC (US);
General Electric Company, San Jose, CA (US);
Abstract
To mechanize the accumulation of nuclear fuel rods into fuel bundle groups, fuel rods are uploaded onto an input table from a succession of trays containing fuel rods of different rod types. The serial number of each fuel rod is read during procession across the input table to an output queue. An input elevator uniformly distributes fuel rods from the output queue to plural levels of an accumulation rack until each level contains an identical number of fuel rods of each rod type necessary to completely assemble one fuel bundle. An output elevator then empties the accumulation rack, one level at a time, to an output table, from which the fuel rods from each level are downloaded into separate bundle trays.