On August 10, 2009, a failure to comply was identified during USEC's routine refurbishment of a UX-30 transportation overpack. The overpack was being prepared for shipment of a clean empty 30B cylinder to a Russian facility where the cylinder would be filled with enriched
uranium hexafluoride and returned to the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PGDP). The failure to comply involves a missing retracting ball in a ball lock pin that is designed with two required retracting balls. Ten of these ball lock pins are used to hold the top and bottom half of the UX-30 overpack together during transport.
The firm supplying the ball lock pins was Columbiana Hi Tech (CHT). USEC has received 3,732 ball lock pins from CHT since July 2008, in five separate purchase orders. This report is the only instance to USEC's knowledge that a ball lock pin has had a missing retracting ball. Six hundred eighty-six of these pins have been supplied by USEC to its shipping agent.
USEC Quality Control inspected approximately one thousand one hundred sixty-four ball lock pins currently on site, but not yet installed, to insure the pins had both balls installed and the pins functioned correctly. This was completed on August 24, 2009. Not additional defective pins were discovered.
The USEC shipping agent was ordered, on August 21, 2009, to return to PGDP the remaining uninstalled ball lock pins from the six hundred eighty-six supplied and in its possession. A USEC Quality Control inspection will verify both balls installed and the pins function correctly.
USEC intends to perform an assessment of the supplier (CHT) to ensure the supplier is adequately implementing its quality programs and is ensuring its sub tier suppliers are meeting established quality requirements. This assessment is scheduled to be conducted beginning September 28, 2009, barring any unforeseen circumstances.