CANDU Single- Fuel-Channel Replacement Reducing Time and Radiation Exposure

Abstract

With cost pressures on Nuclear Generating Stations there is an ongoing incentive to improve fuel channel replacement tooling and procedures to reduce reactor down time and radiation exposure. Improvements have been made on several tools including feeder blanking plates, feeder winches, video display, end fitting angle measuring tools, feeder bolt removal tools and reactor face shielding. Emphasis in this paper will be on shielding, feeder blanking plates and end fitting angle measuring. In addition to improved tooling it is equally important to ensure that there are good procedures to rep ace fuel channels with minimum time and radiation exposure. At the most recent fuel channel change at Darlington, good procedures and a well trained dedicated crew resulted in the fuel channel change being carried out with only 75 hours of in-vault time. This represented a significant reduction rom previous fuel channel changes. Specific times for all single fuel channel changes have not been recorded but this paper identifies potential savings of 2 to 3 days with the use of improved tooling.