Westinghouse has been awarded a contract to apply the Underwater Laser Beam Welding process (ULBW) at Progress Energy’s (NYSE: PGN) single-unit, 724 MW Robinson Nuclear Plant in Hartsville, S.C. This will be the first application of the ULBW process, which has been applied previously in Japan, at a U.S. nuclear plant.
Developed jointly by Westinghouse and majority owner Toshiba Corp., the ULBW process applies stress corrosion, cracking-resistant weld metal – under water – onto the inside diameter surface of aged components, serving as a method of mitigation and repair. The laser beam’s precise heat and dilution controls result in consistent weld quality and high deposit purity.
At Robinson Unit 2, the process will be applied to reactor vessel nozzle dissimilar metal welds during the fall 2013 outage.
Subscribe to Nuclear Power International magazine
Print
Email
Save
