"The quality of workmanship, attention to detail, and ability to deliver results in a tough work environment are a credit to the boilermakers, millwrights, electricians, and laborers who work on the project,"said John Sauger, Executive Vice President, Project Management and Construction.
– Edited By Chris Reed –
With reassembly of the Unit 1 and 2 reactors underway at Bruce A, retube crews are earning their own place in the history of nuclear power generation.
Never before have CANDU reactor cores been completely disassembled, chopped up into small pieces for disposal, and then reassembled with new components.
Crews achieved a major milestone at 6:21 a.m. on July 28 when the last of 480 new calandria tubes was positioned in the Unit 2 reactor. They're now installing new fuel channel assemblies, striving to be finished by year end.
"Our strategy here is to do things right the first time and continue on an improvement trend," said John Soini, Deputy Vice President, Restart Project. "This is the kind of thing you really can't rush through. A balance between quality and production is extremely important."
In Unit 1, the team is see-sawing back and forth between the installation of calandria tubes and fuel channel assemblies. A controlled lag behind the work in Unit 2 allows workers to benefit from experience and lessons learned.
The installation work involves multiple steps for each component with every movement carefully choreographed and every task carefully executed and documented. Crews on the reactor face receive step-bystep instructions from co-workers in a nearby Retube Control Centre who monitor progress with Quality Control Technicians via high-tech audio-visual feeds.
"The quality of workmanship, attention to detail, and ability to deliver results in a tough work environment are a credit to the boilermakers, millwrights, electricians, and laborers who work on the project,"said John Sauger, Executive Vice President, Project Management and Construction. "Given the tools and equipment needed to accomplish work, Ontario's labor pool consistently demonstrates excellent performance second to none."
You can see animation videos of how Bruce Power is retubing here: http://www.brucepower.com/pagecontentu12.aspx?navuid=5065&video=media/itr.mov