Equipos Nucleares SA, SME , together Enresa, Enusa, the North American laboratories; Sandia National Laboratories and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and several organizations of South Korea , have been nominated for the «Secretary’s Honor Awards – Achievement Award» granted by the Department of Energy of the United States for its project to test the behavior of spent fuel during transportation through different means , carried out with Ensa´s design; the ENUN 32P cask.

To answer the question of whether it is possible a safely transport of spent nuclear fuel in the United States, SNL led this international team for 8 months and more than 9,000 miles to quantify the accelerations and vibrations experienced by fuel rods under normal transportation by rail, ship and road.

The analysis of the collected data revealed that the accelerations experienced by the fuel when it is transported in the ENUN 32P cask and the deformations suffered by the rods are well below the failure limits, ensuring that it maintains its integrity during normal transport conditions.

The «Secretary’s Honor Awards – Achievement Award» recognizes the extraordinary service and contributions of DOE employees for the benefit of the American nation and represents the highest internal non-monetary recognition they can receive.

 

50 American media broadcast these tests

More than fifty American digital media broadcast the tests carried out by Sandia National Laboratories to study the behavior during transportation of fuel elements in the dual purpose – storage and transport – ENUN 32P cask , designed and manufactured by Equipos Nucleares SA, SME .

Albuquerque Journal, Washington Times, The State, San Francisco Chronicle, Seattle Times, Miami Herald, Occupational Health and Safety Online, Environmental Protection Online, Engineering.com are just a small sample of the online journals that echo that trials made by subjecting the container to different transport – road, maritime along the coast and the Atlantic Ocean and rail – validate that spent fuel maintains safety during normal transport conditions.

Equipos Nucleares S.A., S.M.E   successfully completed the first welds of a series of components of the ITER that are currently being manufactured.

All of this has been possible thanks to the preparation work developed by the welding team. Such welds have been designed and developed in the CTA , as well as the tests  and the qualifications carried out to the personnel who will work on the final components.

The high qualification and experience of all the manufacturing personnel have been reflected in the quality of their welds that have shown excellent results in the non-destructive testing phase, by achieving  «0» defects and in a project of high technological difficulty.

Equipos Nucleares S.A., S.M.E  successfully carried out the hydrostatic tests of three heat exchangers of the RJH reactor. These heat exchangers will be part of the primary circuit of the RJH that is built in the CEA premises in Cadarache .

The objectives for the RJH reactor are: the irradiation of materials and fuels used in current and future nuclear reactors, to guarantee the safety of these reactors and the production of radioisotopes for medical purposes. The RJH reactor will replace the Osiris reactor .

Ensa has successfully set in motion the second cutting campaign of the first control rods in the Cofrentes NPP in Valencia.

In this way, both the second package of limiters and the first quivers of Vs have been obtained, which reduce the volume occupied by the bars.

The first campaign began on spring 2017 with the placing of the equipment and the first cuts with control rods. This cutting technique, designed and developed by Ensa in collaboration with GEH, is pioneer in Spain and is able to reduce the volume occupied by the control bars in the fuel pools and segregate the parts of medium or low activity.

The Cantabrian Company received a grant from the INNPULSA Program – INNOVA HELP year 2014.

Welding and Thermal Treatments department of Ensa has developed a heating system for annular areas of union by welding in large parts controlled, safe, standardized and easy to adapt to different configurations .

This project has been launched through one of the subsidies framed within the line of aid: INNPULSA Program – INNOVA AIDs 2014, managed by the department of General Directorate of Innovation, Technological Development and Industrial Entrepreneurship, within the Ministry of Innovation, Industry, Tourism and Trade of the Government of Cantabria, selected for co-financing within the Operational Program FEDER of Cantabria 2014 -2020.

The project aims to increase the safety and procedure of the current process by improving the quality of the product and trying to cut down its times.