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New system will boost safety at Lithuanian nuclear plant |
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New ultrasonic testing equipment designed and built in the UK will help improve safety at a Chernobyl-type nuclear power station in Lithuania.
Phoenix Inspection Systems, the NDT equipment specialist, has worked with the NDT Technology team at Mitsui Babcock to assemble a system to test nickel repair welds in carbon steel pipework. It is the second time that Phoenix and Mitsui Babcock have collaborated to provide advanced inspection solutions for the Ignalina plant, whose two reactors are of the Soviet-designed RBMK variety like those at the ill-fated Chernobyl plant.
The new scanner will enable these areas which are presently inaccessible to be scanned. Bryan Forth, project engineer with Phoenix, said: “The challenge was to design a scanner that could reach into areas that were difficult to access and could also operate within a restricted ‘envelope’. Our design overcomes these problems and will allow future inspections to achieve the required coverage.”
The work has been funded by the UK government’s Nuclear Safety Programme, which provides safety assistance projects to organisations in Central and Eastern European and former Soviet Union countries.
The latest system will be used on 828mm diameter carbon steel pipework at the plant. Due to manufacturing difficulties, many of the original welds in the pipework have had to be excavated and repaired using nickel, a material which is difficult to inspect.
Fraser Hardie, NDT group leader with Mitsui Babcock in Renfrew, near Glasgow, explained: “There are hundreds of areas of nickel weld repairs of all different shapes and sizes which are in need of inspection and to test them all properly would normally require a whole range of specialist techniques.
“We chose phased array technology because it’s so flexible. Through the computer-controlled process of focusing and sweeping the beam, it takes only one probe to do what would normally require many. Radiation is always an issue at nuclear plants so the system also had to be designed to maximise speed of use while maintaining reliability.”
The system consists of a motorised scanner and a TD Phased Array Instrument. Mitsui Babcock will develop and qualify the inspection system and provide training at the Ignalina plant.
Paul Ryan, sales manager of Phoenix Inspection Systems, added: “The new inspection equipment and procedures will represent a much more modern and effective alternative to those currently in use at Ignalina.”
For further information about Phoenix contact Paul Ryan on +44 (0)1925 826000.
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