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Scanner helps Doosan Babcock achieve decade of success |
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Tuesday, 30 January 2007 |
A Scottish NDT team are celebrating their success after a decade inspecting French nuclear power stations. Ten years after Doosan Babcock won the original contract from EdF, the work is still going strong - as is the scanner which they and their joint venture partners Intercontrole, France's leading supplier of nuclear non-destructive examination services, rely on to perform the inspections.
Doosan Babcock, then known as Babcock Energy, competed with some of the world's leading inspection companies to win the contract, to non-destructively test welds in the primary coolant circuits of EdF's fleet of 40 reactors. The team then worked with Phoenix Inspection Systems to develop a suitable scanner for the job. While the original scanner is still in active service, the system - known as the APSIS - has produced sales worldwide for Phoenix.
Meanwhile the Doosan Babcock NDT team, following the success of its first international contract, has gone from strength to strength and currently works with leading nuclear power utility companies in the UK and in Sweden, Switzerland, Argentina, Russia and the Ukraine amongst others. It is has recently become part of South Korea's Doosan Heavy Industries group.
Jim Thomson, Director of Technology Business at Doosan Babcock, said the team had carried out over 45 inspections for EdF. He said: ‘Modern nuclear reactors have safety systems which provide "strength in depth". The primary coolant circuit is designed to transfer heat from the reactor core, and must function to the highest reliability and integrity standards, so rigorous weld inspection is crucial.
‘However there were a number of challenges to overcome in developing a scanner and inspection procedures. The welds are composed of austenitic steel, which is notoriously difficult to test without the use of advanced inspection technology. As the cost of outages at power stations can reach almost £1 million a day, inspections had to be carried out as quickly as possible and to limit operators' exposure in a high radiation environment. The equipment therefore needed to be quick and easy to set up and to operate reliably.
‘The APSIS scanner has proved highly reliable over a long period of time. The collaboration with Phoenix has been successful for both parties and we continue to work with them on projects today.'
Karl Quirk, Phoenix managing director, added: ‘We would like to congratulate the Doosan Babcock team on their success and are delighted we have been able to play a part in it.'
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