Technical innovation: unique training centers

Created in 2007, the Non-Destructive Examinations Solutions Technical Center (NETEC) of AREVA brings together over 50 scientists and engineers to design and develop new inspection techniques and innovative sensors.
This center reinforces the group’s technological leadership in this field and increases the integration of international resources for developing non-destructive examinations to further improve AREVA's product offer.

These tools help reduce unit outages and improve power plant operation and availability. Thanks to their design, they also help limit workers’ radiation exposure time. Several remote-controlled inspection and testing systems developed at the center have already been tried and tested:

• The reactor vessel inspection systems (MIS 7 and TWS) have benefited from robotics and inspection software innovations, which have considerably reduced maintenance times while improving result reliability.
• The underwater robot SUSI enables detailed examinations of internal structures and combustible elements.
• The new tool, JASPER, facilitates the reliable inspection of control rod drive bars.
• RANGER, the new machine for inspecting the tubes in steam generators, was designed for rapid installation in inspection areas. Among other things, it helps limit employee radiation exposure.

The BU carries out non-destructive examinations through its inspection centers in France, Germany and the United States (AREVA Inc.).

AREVA's Technical Center is the first link in the development chain for new technologies. One of the Center's objectives is to help develop solutions and tools for plant operators.

The International Technical Center is spread across 4 sites (Erlangen and Karlstein in Germany and Chalon/Saint-Marcel and Le Creusot in France). It brings together 350 engineers who are equipped with the most up-to-date equipment and test loops. Their collaborative research enables the group to offer innovative solutions that incorporate lessons learned and the best technologies.

The Technical Center provides operational aids and expert advice in the following fields: 

• Materials technology, failure analyses
• Corrosion, chemistry
• Mechanics, wear and friction
• Radiochemistry, and analytical chemistry, dosimetry, hot cells
• Thermal hydraulics and fluid dynamics
• Welding and related technologies
• Manufacturing of special components
• Component and system testing
• Fluid and structural mechanics

This center is complemented by regional centers that focus on developing, deploying and implementing equipment. They work with test facilities to assess and certify services.

Centers devoted to training and assessing maintenance teams recreate working conditions identical to those encountered in power plants.
More than 7,600 m² of facilities are dedicated to training in Germany, France (CETIC) and the United States (Lynchburg).

These centers are equipped with replicas of original components such as reactor vessels, internal equipment, steam generators, pressurizers, fuel handling equipment, reactor vessel heads, and fuel pits for a PWR and a BWR with a movable refueling crane.

This equipment is made available to AREVA and operator teams to:

• validate maintenance techniques in power plants, 
• assess tools used,
• train teams before maintenance operations, 
• offer ongoing training covering technology and legislative developments.

With its hot workshops in France and the United States, the BU has all of the resources necessary for the offsite maintenance of contaminated components (such as pump assembly motors) found throughout the world.

These offsite maintenance operations free operators from constraints related to planning a shutdown. They help control maintenance and operating costs, and limit the duration of outages.

These workshops have the facilities to:

• dispatch and receive,
• store,
• decontaminate,
• carry out services and repair,
• dismantle contaminated components.

The hot workshops include the following 2 facilities:

• SOMANU: located in Maubeuge, this 4,000 m² hot workshop is equipped with a full range of tools for working on large contaminated components.
• Pump and Motor Services Center: in Lynchburg, Virginia (United States), this world-class hot workshop is equipped with the very latest tools. With a surface area of 4,650 m², it is the largest facility of its kind in the United States.

AREVA also has other maintenance centers in France with "hot bases" that perform various decontamination operations on maintenance tools. These include CEMO in Chalon-sur-Saône, CEDOS in Sully-sur-Loire, and Intercontrôle in Cadarache.