Springs Fabrication Awarded Water Jet Peening Bridge at Wolf Creek

Springs Fabrication was awarded the Water Jet Peening Bridge System in support of our customers project with Wolf Creek Nuclear Operating Corporation and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries subsidiary, Mitsubishi Nuclear Energy Systems (MNES), to perform water jet peening of the reactor vessel components susceptible to primary water stress corrosion cracking (PWSCC) during the plant’s next refueling outage.

WOLF CREEK: WATER JET PEENING OF REACTOR VESSEL NOZZLES

Wolf Creek is the first U.S. nuclear power plant to implement this process, with the goal of mitigating
primary water stress corrosion cracking in reactor vessel nozzles.

The Water Jet Peening Bridge System was designed and fabricated to minimize crane use over the reactor cavity during the peening operation.
The modular, 90-ton bridge assembly was fabricated, inspected, tested, assembled and prepared for shipment at our facility.

During the fall 2016 outage at the Wolf Creek nuclear power plant, Wolf Creek Nuclear Operating Corporation became the first
U.S. nuclear plant operator to perform water jet peening on its reactor vessel nozzles.

The goal was to mitigate the susceptibility to primary water stress corrosion cracking (PWSCC), which can occur in nickel-based Alloy 600 welds,
and specifically in pressurized water reactor vessel welds because of the high operating temperatures.

These alloys are used in the welding material that attaches the reactor vessel nozzles to the reactor vessel. In the case of Wolf Creek, a 1,200-MWe PWR
near Burlington, Kan., there are eight inlet/outlet nozzles for the reactor coolant system and 58 bottom-mounted penetration nozzles.

Source: Nuclear News, May 2017

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