Advancements o f Westinghouse VVER-1000 fuel manufacturing capacity

The Westinghouse nuclear fuel fabrication facility in Västerås, Sweden, started out as a pure BWR fuel manufacturer more than 50 years ago. Annual volumes between 200 and 300 tU were common until around year 2002, when Westinghouse fast growth on the European PWR market rapidly increased the annual volumes. In later years, a similar growth on the VVER-1000 fuel market required the Swedish fuel facility to further expand and advance its manufacturing to handle the increased quantities. This paper describes in further detail the measures implemented to handle the increased volumes of VVER-1000 fuel. The layout of the assembly shop was completely re-designed to create room for a new fast fuel assembling equipment, but also to optimize the manufacturing flow. A new building was constructed for the packing and storage of PWR and VVER fuel, allowing up to 300 fuel assemblies to be stored at a time. Westinghouse also decided to insource the manufacturing of the top and bottom nozzles, and added a new laser weld and furnace to the production of spacer grids. Finally, through the close cooperation with the Westinghouse fuel facility in Springfields, UK, and the ENUSA fuel facility in Juzbado, Spain, important manufacturing flexibility has been created to even out temporary peaks in the load. (author)