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Ensa’s new success in ITER robot welding

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Maliaño, November 16, 2018 – Equipos Nucleares S.A., S.M.E continues with success the execution of welds of components destined to the ITER project .

 

The robotic TIG welding system developed in the Advanced Technology Centre by the Automatic Unit with the Welding Development Unit, in collaboration with the personnel of the Production Welding Unit, has made possible to complete the vertical upward welds on both sides of one of the ITER sector components assigned to the Cantabrian company, obtaining magnificent results in the quality and productivity of the process in the 3 welded components.

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

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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.

Ensa, within a group of technologists, winner of the «Secretary’s Honor Awards – Achievement Award»

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The Cantabrian company was nominated in May 2018 for an R&D project on its ENUN32P cask.

Maliaño, 04 October 2018.- Equipos Nucleares S.A., S.M.E in collaboration with other national and international technologists -Enresa and Enusa, the American laboratories: Sandia National Laboratories and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and several South Korean organizations , has finally won the «Secretary’s Honor Awards – Achievement Award» granted by the Department of Energy of the Government of the United States of America for an R&D project to study the behaviour of spent fuel elements transported in its ENUN 32P dual-purpose, storage and transport cask, and verify the calculations made during the design.

U.S. laboratory Sandia led this international data collection test during an eight-month triathlon to quantify the accelerations and vibrations and deformations experienced by uranium oxide rods from a simulated spent fuel element during transportation by rail, ship and truck. Its analysis revealed that the accelerations and deformations were well below the resistance limit of the irradiated fuel.

The award recognizes the contribution of this equipment to the benefit of U.S. society and represents the highest non-monetary recognition that can be received.

Other entities that have received this prestigious award have been the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and NASA.

 

Ensa receives the Certificate of Compliance of the ENUN 24P cask in Spain

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Maliaño, October 31, 2017. – Equipos Nucleares S.A, S.M.E. has received the approval of the MINETAD for the design of its ENUN 24P cask for the transportation of spent nuclear fuel. With this approval, the licensing process in Spain of the cask is concluded.

The design of the ENUN 24P allows the storage and transportation of up to 24 non-damaged used PWR fuel by road, rail and sea. Ensa has already manufactured a unit of this model, which has already been delivered to the Daya Bay plant in Shenzhen – China.

This license approval is a milestone for the Spanish nuclear industry, since  the ENUN 24P is the first cask licensed in Spain that allows the transportation of high burnup fuel . Additionally, the ENUN 24P increases the list of self-designed casks already licensed by Ensa, adding to ENUN 32P and ENUN 52B.

The Energy Policy and Mines General Directorate of MINETAD, in accordance with the favorable report issued by the CSN and, as a result of the evaluations carried out, agreed to approve this design for «complying with the requirements for type B packages as per the regulations of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Spanish regulations on the transport of dangerous materials «.

Ensa is currently providing support to its customer URC for the design validation process by the Chinese Nuclear Regulator Authority . This validation will presumably  enable URC to carry out the first commercial high burnup fuel transportation in China.

Ensa belongs to the SEPI Group, a corporate holding company that comprises a total of 15 Spanish public companies directly and majority owned, with a workforce of almost 73,000 professionals. SEPI is also a shareholder of the Spanish Broadcasting Corporation , and has a public foundation and direct minority interests in nine other companies and indirect in more than one hundred companies.