GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) said this week it had delivered its 500th Ultra Control Rod Blade, which was sent to the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth, MA as part of a multi-blade shipment.
The company has taken close to six years to accomplish the milestone. It delivered the first Ultra blades in 2009, "building off the success of the Marathon control rod blade," the company said.
The first high duty (Ultra HD) blades were delivered in 2011. GEH has delivered Ultra blades to boiling water reactors around the world including in Finland, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan and the U.S.
“Innovative technology makes the GEH Ultra Control Rod Blade both reliable and cost-effective,” said Kevin Walsh, Senior Vice President, Nuclear Services and Fuels in a statement. “The Ultra blades being used in the nuclear fleet today are performing as designed with excellent inspection results.
Control rod blades are long, cruciform shaped metal-tube components that contain neutron-absorbing material and are positioned adjacent to nuclear fuel assemblies within the reactor core. Operators remotely adjust the position of these blades to manage core reactivity levels. The Ultra is the next iteration of GEH’s tube-within-a-tube control rod blade design and offers enhanced performance, reliability and flexibility.
GEH recently completed manufacturing more than 40 Ultra Control Rod Blades for Kernkraftwerk Leibstadt AG (KKL). The blades are scheduled to be shipped and installed in the Leibstadt Nuclear Power Plant in Leibstadt, Switzerland during the summer of 2015.
GEH designs and builds its control rod blade product line using advanced materials and manufacturing processes at its world headquarters site in Wilmington, NC.