The design of the lines and equipment installed were chosen following a worldwide evaluation of the best manufacturing practices available within Framatome ANP.
The company's best-practice line fuel fabrication operation incorporates processes, quality controls and equipment, drawing from the vast experience of its entire U.S. and European fuel fabrication complex. The goal is to deliver the highest quality fuel possible to all of our customers worldwide.
The changes include new manufacturing processes for loading the fuel rods and welding their end caps. At the Richland plant, a new vibratory loading system, where low frequency vibration slowly moves fuel pellets into the fuel rods, ensures that pellets are not damaged during the loading process.
This process has been used successfully at the company's Romans, France, and Dessel, Belgium, facilities for over 25 years. The Lynchburg plant is using an improved pellet loading process that pushes pellets into open-ended fuel rods, eliminating the potential for hard loading issues.
A new fuel rod welding process has been installed at both the Richland and Lynchburg plants. The gas tungsten arc welding process has been replaced by a resistance pressure welding process that avoids the melting of cladding material and the potential creation of voids within the welded area.
This welding process was first introduced at the company's Lingen, Germany, facility in 1994, where more than 1.8 million fuel rods have been fabricated without fuel performance issues associated with weld joints.
In all, some 27 equipment and process changes have been made at each of the two U.S. fuel fabrication facilities, establishing a new state-of-the-art for both pressurized water reactor and boiling water reactor fuel manufacturing.
Start-up and testing of the best-practice line began at the Richland facility on June 24 and in Lynchburg on July 9. Both facilities are in full operation and manufacturing is now underway to complete orders for fuel loads for the fall 2004 refueling outages.