African Fusion August 2016

SAIW’s Sean Blake visits France

Nuclear and railway fabrication: the

SAIW executive director Sean Blake shares experiences of his visit to France, where he toured the Chalon Saint-Marcel manufacturing plant of ArevaHeavy Equipment before visiting Alstom Transport in Le Creusot.

Within the facility, there is awelding technology department, which is work- ing on a number of new welding devel- opments, including developingwelding processes for the ITER Tokamak nuclear fusion project. They are also working on powder metallurgy solutions using Hot Isostatic Pressing (HIP) technolo- gies as well as the joining of a stainless steel/copper and beryllium composite for water cooling for this project. The development group is also working on GMAW welding techniques as well as the automatic feed of filler material for GTAW welding in order to improve productivity and automation. Within the facility they have awelder training and testing facility, which is manned with training instructors and welding management. For a welder to work on the nuclear components, a minimumof 10 years training and expe- rience is required. Interestingly, Areva is using elec- troslag welding as a weld build-up and cladding technique. The process is pre- ferred for some applications due to the lowdilution achieved. Within the facility they are also using robotic GMAWweld- ing as a cladding process. Polysoude’s TIGer (TIG with and electric resistance/ hot wire feed) is utilised in order to im- prove productivity. The facility has a second welder training facility that is remote from the manufacturing facility. Within this facility there are two welding bays with simulated environments wherewelders are trained and tested in a temperature and humidity controlled working envi- ronment with jigs for restricted access. Much of this second welder training facilitywas dedicated to the use of auto- matedwelding techniques with training and development of narrow-gap orbital

F ollowing a visit by a French del- egation to the SAIW facility in February 2016, an invitation was extended by Areva to visit its Heavy Equipment Manufacturing facility in St Marcel – Chalon, France. This facility was opened in 1976 and some of the components for the Koeberg Nuclear Power station were built in that facility. The facility primarily manufactures the steam generators for Areva’s 3 rd genera- tion EPR nuclear power plant. Some of the components for the Koeberg steam generator replacement project may also be manufactured in the facility with the balance planned for manufacture in an Arevamanufacturing facility in China. I took the opportunity to visit this facility in conjunction with IIW meetings scheduled for May 25 and 26 in Gent, Belgium for the IIW Inspector working group. During discussions with Areva per- sonnel, they suggested that I could also visit the Alstom Transport site in Le Creusot, which is a short driveaway from Chalon. The Alstom Transport facility is in the process of building bogies for PRASA and is the technology partner for Gibela, which is currently establishing a manufacturing facility inDunnotar, Nigel for the local manufacture of passenger rail vehicles. AREVA Heavy Equipment The fabrication facility is composed of four bays, an ancillary bay for support activities including welder training, a light bay with capacity for up to 50 t,

a medium bay for up to 350 tons; and a heavy bay for fabrications of up to 1 000 tons. The facility employs 364 operators of which 62 are boilermakers, 80 arewelders, with 348 technicians and 205managers and engineers. Due to the nature and quality requirements of the products manufactured at this facility, there is a high ratio of engineers and technicians tooperators. Quality control and engineering are key factors in this operation with a ratio of one manufac- turing hour for each engineering hour. Manufacturing methods have been studied and developed specifically for the Areva activities and have been developed over a period if more than 30 years. The drilling and broaching process is a key example of this, where tubes sheets of up to 600 mm thick are drilled and broached to an accuracy of 0.01 mm. A matching sample is kept of every tube sheet bored as a quality control requirement. Owing to Koeberg being built by Framatome (a predecessor of Areva), a closeworking relationship ismaintained between Eskom and the French power consortium of Areva and EDF. All assembly operations are con- ducted in clean rooms. Unfortunately, due to the cleanliness requirements and rules of the facility, I was not able to en- ter the assembly area, however, I could view the operation from the outside through a glass window. The assembly is carefully controlledwith each itembe- ing identified andweighedwithmultiple checks to ensure proper assembly.

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August 2016

AFRICAN FUSION