Entradas
Ensa collaborates with the University of Cantabria and the CSIC in a project on non-destructive ultrasonic testing techniques
Maliaño, December 17th, 2018 – Equipos Nucleares S.A., S.M.E collaborated with the University of Cantabria and the Higher Council for Scientific Research in a project related to the techniques of non-destructive testing by ultrasound whose objective was that the Cantabrian company improve its training in two new generation techniques Phased Array and TOFD.
The execution of this project is translated in terms of innovation for Ensa, due to the fact that the advanced ultrasound tests can contribute to guarantee the quality of the welds in the welding station itself.
This collaboration has served to launch a new inspection technology project aimed at robotizing tests for the ITER project with which the Cantabrian company and the UC will continue working together.
The project was financed by the Ministry of Innovation, Industry, Tourism and Trade of the Government of Cantabria through the European Regional Development Fund .
Ensa participated in the Heavy Fabrication Summit (HFS2018) in Finland
Maliaño, December 12th, 2018-. Equipos Nucleares S.A., S.M.E participated in the Heavy Manufacturing Summit held at the Pemamek headquarters in Loimaa, Finland whose main objective was to make known the latest welding trends to increase quality, productivity and efficiency in heavy manufacturing.
The event was attended by over a hundred participants from companies around the world who came together to learn about the latest trends in heavy welding , recent innovations in this field and ways to increase production capacity. In addition, there were live demonstrations of six different automated PEMA welding and production solutions. Domingo Lima, head of the Center for Advanced Technology represented the Cantabrian company there.
Ensa develops a mechanized welding machine for circular joints in ITER sectors
Maliaño, December 5, 2018 – The Automatic unit belonging to the Advanced Technology Centre together with the Welding Development of Equipos Nucleares S.A., S.M.E have developed a mechanized welding machine for the accomplishment of the circular joints of the sector PS1 of ITER .
This machine has the particularity of having a rotary joint that allows continuous welding.
Ensa collaborates again with SANDIA and PNNL (USA ) and BAM (Germany) laboratories
Maliaño, December 3, 2018 – Equipos Nucleares S.A., S.M.E has reached a new agreement with the American research laboratories of SANDIA and PNNL – with whom already collaborated in a project to measure vibrations during the transport of its ENUN 32P cask in 2017 – by which it will make available to SANDIA the 1/3 scale model of the cask, so that a series of new tests can be carried out in the facilities of the BAM research Centre, in Berlin . Ensa’s technicians will support SANDIA, PNNL and BAM through the tests that will be carried out in this Centre.
The foreseen tests are framed in the verification of the behaviour of the cask and the spent fuel for compliance with the safety requirements indicated in the Normal Conditions of Transport, which are required in the licensing processes of casks for the Transport mode, according to the current IAEA regulations .
As indicated above, the scale model to be used was built in Ensa for the tests performed under Normal Transport Conditions and Hypothetical Accident Conditions, carried out at the SANDIA facilities , to validate the design of the ENUN 32P cask and the impact limiters of all the casks of the ENUN family, checking the accelerations suffered by the cask, while in this new project the accelerations suffered by the fuel will be checked in greater detail.
Once the tests are completed, all the equipment will return to Ensa while SANDIA and PNNL will be in charge of post-processing and analysing the results obtained. This new collaboration confirms the preparation of Ensa’s technological equipment and its positioning in the research of more advanced products.
Ensa assisted to the 12th General Assembly of CEIDEN
Equipos Nucleares S.A., S.M.E assisted to the 12th General Assembly of the Nuclear Fission Energy Technology Platform held at the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities.
During the session, the latest developments regarding energy policy were discussed and the main technical programmes of the platform were presented, among which the analysis of national investments in nuclear R&D+i corresponding to 2016 stood out. It also hosted the conference «The Integrated Energy Network» held by representatives of the Electric Power Research Institute .
The objectives of CEIDEN, of which Ensa has been a member since its beginnings in 2007, are to coordinate the different national R&D plans and programmes, as well as participation in international programmes, trying to coherently guide the efforts of the entities involved.
The Cantabrian company was represented by Luis Magdalena, coordinator of R&D Improvements and Javier Matarredona, from the Marketing and Sales Department.
Ensa welcomes ENUSA President
Ensa welcomes ENUSA President
Maliaño, October 22, 2018 – Equipos Nucleares S.A., S.M.E received the visit of José Vicente Berlanga, president of ENUSA INDUSTRIAS AVANZADAS, S.A., S.M.E , who was accompanied by Pablo Zuloaga, Government delegate in Cantabria.
Eduardo González-Mesones, president of the Cantabrian company; Rafael Triviño, general manager and Ángel Cosío, director of Human Relations and Corporate Social Responsibility, explained some of the most relevant aspects of the company’s activity focused on the design and manufacture of large components for the nuclear industry, spent fuel management and which provides different services in the plant covering its entire life cycle, including dismantling.
During his visit to the workshop, Berlanga was able to gain first-hand knowledge of some of the equipment currently in different stages of manufacture and showed special interest in the fuel heads of the Spanish nuclear power plants that Ensa has been supplying to ENUSA since 1998. «I have been able to verify in situ that a Spanish company such as Ensa is a technical reference in the manufacturing of components for such a demanding sector as the nuclear sector», he declared.
For its part, Zuloaga valued this meeting very positively and expressed its commitment to visit the facilities of the company based in Maliaño on another occasion and in greater detail.
SEPI Group
Both companies belong to the SEPI Group, Ensa 100% owned and ENUSA 60% owned, a holding company that covers a total of 15 public companies directly and majority owned, with more than 74,000 professionals. It also has a supervised public foundation and minority direct shareholdings in nine other companies and indirect shareholdings in more than one hundred companies.
Ensa successfully completes the loading campaign at the Ascó II Power Plant
Maliaño, 19th October 2018.- Equipos Nucleares S.A., S.M.E successfully completed the loading of 2 casks at the Ascó nuclear power plant in Tarragona.
With this work, the Cantabrian company has completed the loading campaign this year for a total of 6 casks; 4 in group I between March and April and 2 in group II between September and October.
In addition to the loads, Ensa received 4 new casks manufactured by the company itself, two of which were used for Group II.
Ensa develops a new submerged arc welding system
Maliaño, October 17, 2018 – The Automatic unit belonging to the Advanced Technology Centre of Equipos Nucleares S.A., S.M.E , in collaboration with the Welding Development unit and the Production Welding Unit, has designed a new submerged arc welding system that is being used in the union of parts that make up the Lower-Port of the PS4 of ITER .
This new advance allows welding inside the component whose complex geometry makes the joining process difficult, thus achieving significant improvements in the quality of the welds in compliance with the standards required by ITER.
Ensa participated in the SNE meeting with two conferences to present its advances in the ITER project and in the automation of the measurement of tube plate hole diameters
Maliaño, 11th October 2018.- Equipos Nucleares S.A., S.M.E participated in the 44th annual meeting of the Spanish Nuclear Society with two presentations. The first one to present its advances in the ITER project and the second one focused on the automation of the measurement of tube plate hole diameters.
Sofia Corino, in charge of the Special Projects area, presented the latest novelties related to the assembly of the ITER vacuum chamber, as well as the validation of the prototypes developed.
Her, presentation was divided into two blocks to explain, on the one hand, the scope of Ensa within this project of international importance, as well as the challenges and technical difficulties that must be overcome, among which the limitation of space and access stands out. On the other hand, she talked about the prototypes already developed and the advance of their validation on the 1:1 models.
Domingo Lima, head of Ensa’s Advanced Technology Center , spoke about «Automation of the measurement of tube plate diameter holes».
In this sense, he explained that during the manufacture of the steam generators the drilling of the Tube Plate is carried out and that the difficulty in the quality control of these holes has made necessary the development of a new system and the improvement of the methodology to make the inspection in an automated and more efficient way.
Some of the advances of this robotic system are:
– Guarantee of 100% inspection of the holes.
– Calculation of measurements in real time without further processing.
– Registration of the acquired data.
– Automatic generation of reports with all measurements and non-conformities.
– Adaptable to all types of geometries.
– Improved productivity.
– Reliability of the system.