Spent fuel rod horizontal consolidation system and method

Patent · Tue Feb 09 04:00:00 EST 1988

OSTI ID:5386368

Blissell, W H; Watts, R E

An arrangement for consolidating spent nuclear fuel rods from a fuel assembly is described comprising: a first station including downender means including platform means having a vertical position for receiving one fuel assembly in a vertical orientation, and having an alternate horizontal position for removal of the rods from the assembly; clamp means securing the assembly in the vertical orientation to the platform means; means for removing at least the upper nozzle from the assembly in its vertical orientation; first insertable comb means carried by the platform means and near the upper nozzle end of the assembly positioned to preserve the original square pitch array of the rods; a second station, for rod extraction and reordering, in general horizontal alignment with the downender means in its horizontal position, including; rod gripper means adapted to grip all of the rods at their ends adjacent the seconds station; second insertable comb means associated with the second station and positioned to preserve a square pitch array of the rods; means for moving the rod gripper means horizontally from a position adjacent the first station to an opposite position adjacent the opposite end of the second station to pull all of the rods continuously gripped out of the assembly to an upper horizontal position within the length of the second station; reconfiguring die means underlying the upper horizontal position of the rods in the second station; means releasing the rods to permit them to drop into the die means for reconfiguring the rods into a substantially more compact array than the square pitch array; means for pushing the rods in their more compact array from the reconfiguring die means to a horizontal position underlying the platform of the first station; storage canister means releasably carried below the platform to receive the reconfigured rods through one open end of the canister.

• Assignee: Westinghouse Electric Corp., Pittsburgh, PA
• Patent Number(s): US 4723359
• OSTI ID: 5386368
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

42 ENGINEERING
420203* -- Engineering-- Handling Equipment & Procedures
DESIGN
EQUIPMENT
FASTENERS
FUEL ELEMENTS
FUEL RODS
MATERIALS HANDLING
MATERIALS HANDLING EQUIPMENT
NOZZLES
OPERATION
POSITIONING
REACTOR COMPONENTS
SPENT FUEL ELEMENTS