Babcock and Wilcox reactor vessel surveillance service activities

Testing and analytical procedures are presented, established by Babcock and Wilcox to support the reactor vessel program required for ensuring continued licensability of Babcock and Wilcox operating reactors. These procedures include the design of dosimeters, gamma spectroscopy of dosimeters, design of dosimetry installations, and evaluations and analyses to verify the reactor vessel fluences. Machining capabilities for irradiated materials were developed and a program was established to test both unirradiated and irradiated materials to determine mechanical properties. Advanced techniques were developed in linear elastic fracture mechanics high temperature single specimen J-R fracture testing, and related neutron fluence analysis. The experience gained from testing sixteen surveillance capsules from Babcock and Wilcox reactors has been extended to a service program that is available for other vendors' capsules. (Auth.)