ML20002C732
| ML20002C732 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Big Rock Point File:Consumers Energy icon.png |
| Issue date: | 11/15/1972 |
| From: | Sewell R CONSUMERS ENERGY CO. (FORMERLY CONSUMERS POWER CO.) |
| To: | Oleary J US ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION (AEC) |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 8101100800 | |
| Download: ML20002C732 (6) | |
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Generos O".ces 212 West M+cNgsn Avenue, Jackson, MsCNgan 49201. Area Coce S17 708-0550 g
November 15, 1972 Mr. John F. O' Leary, Director Re:
Docket 50-155 Directorate of Licensing License No DPR-6 United States Atomic Energy Additional Information -
Commission Proposed Tech Spec Washington, DC 20545 Change No 31
Dear Mr. O' Leary:
On November 10, 1972, during a telephone conversation, further information was requested by your staff with respect to our June 16, 1972 application for Amendment to Operating License No DPR-6 and Request for Change to the Technical Specifications of License No DPR-6, Docket No 50-155, for the Big Rock Point Nuclear Plant. This letter is sub-mitted to provide the requested information. The question asked by your staff is included to provide clarity.
Question Discuss the quality assurance program and quality control checks that are designed to assure the mechanical integrity of fuel over its anticipated lifetime, including design review effort, review and audit of quality assurance during manufacturing and planned in-spection of fuel after delivery.
Indicate how fuel design and manufacturing minimize failures from hydriding and fuel-clad interaction.
Answer Jersey Nuclear maintains an extensive program of quality assurance and quality control to assure differences from approved design specifications are identified and controlled. The control exists to insure that proper engineering decisions can be made relative to indicated differences from design. The control monitors the implementation of these engineering decisions as well. The attached table (Attachment I) illustrates checks made on fuel pellets and cladding. These are examples of the types of quality control l
checks made to measure conformance to specifications.
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Mr. John F. s'Le:Ty 2
Proposed Tech Spec Change No 31 l
November 15, 1972 The tests referenced above are performed, documented and avail-able 4or rsview by Jersey Nuclear Quality Assurance personnel as well as Consumers Power Company personnel. Records of these tests are maintained by Jersey Nuclear, Consumers Power Company or both.
Consumers Power Company performs quality assurance audits during the manufacture of Reload G fuel assemblies. These audits serve to measure the performance of the vendor's quality assurance and quality control efforts. These audits are a thorough review of work performed by the vendor relative to the assemblies. The audits are documented and are maintained on file within Consumers Power.
The fuel assembly design has been reviewed within Jersey Nuclear by its Fuel Design Council. This Council is made up of the various heads of functional groups such as research and development, quality assurance, product design and manufacturing. The fuel design has also been reviewed by functionally cognizant (physics, thermal-hydraulic, mechanical and metallurgical) individuals within Consumers Power Company.
The design and manufacturing efforts on these assemblies address common industry fuel design manufacturing and performance problems. Con-trols are provided to assure pellets are loaded in their proper position within essemblies. Pellets are stamped with a unique identifying symbol.
Manufacturing facilities are such that mixing of enrichments during pellet production is virtually impossible. Pellets are segregated by lot number and enrichment and placed in segregated, restricted storage.
Quality assurance checks assure that the appropriate pellets are properly loaded into rods which also bear an enrichment identification. Quality control provides for use of.an assembly matrix sheet during the loading of rods into spacer grids. This matrix sheet provides a check that rods are loaded in their proper positions.
Pellet specifications permit only very lov levels of moisture and other hydrogenous materials. Pellets are maintained under cwtrolled conditions following moisture determination and prior to rod loadit g to greatly reduce the moisture pickup. Assemblies with pellets manufactured to current limits have been examined by dry sipping, visual and nonde -
structive means following exposures of over 5000 mwd /MT in the Big Rock Point Plant reactor with no failures being noted.
The cold pellet-clad diametrical gap has been set at a nominal 0.0095" utilizing Jersey Nuclear mechanical design codes. This value is larger than that utilized in Big Rock Point Reload B.
Pellet length to diameter ratio has been reduced to 0.86.
Pellet standards have been set to provide pellets which are relatively free from chips and cracks.
The design employs a dished pellet. These are some of the design con-siderations aimed at reducing the probability of even a small percentage of fuel-clad interaction fuel rod failures.
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Mr. John F. O' Leary 3
Proporsd Tsch Spec Changa No 31 November 15, 1972 Reload G fuel assemblies will be visually and dimensionally inspected following their arrival at Big Rock Point. Consumers Power Company representatives will perform the inspection using approved, written procedures. Jersey Nuclear representatives will be present during the inspection and will be afforded opportunities to partici-pate in the inspection.
Normally Reload G assemblies will be examined at refueling outages following periods of irradiation, Examination of the assemblies will consist of dry sipping to measure assembly integrity with selected assemblies receiving more detaileri visual and nondestructive examination.
Yours very truly, U$
4 RBS/ map Ralph B. Sewell Nuclear LicensiIg Administrator CC: EHGrier, USAEC O
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NI'fACHMENT I Jersey Nuclear Component Inspection _
Assembly Component Attribute Inspected 1.
UO Final Pellet 1.-
U Content 2
Test and Inspec-2.
0/U Ratio tion 3
Halides 4.
Moisture 5
Nitrogen 6.
Carbon 7
Sorbed Gas 8.
Spectrographic Impurities 9
EBC 10.
U-235 11.
Diameter 12.
Length 13 Dish Diameter
- 14. Dish Depth 15 Perpendicularity
- 16. Density 17 Chamber
- 18. Radial, Axial and Circumferential Cracks 19 End and Circumferential Chips 20.
General Appearance 2.
Zircaloy Tubing 1.
ID Receiving In-2.
Wall Thickness spection 3.
Length k.
Defects a.
Ultrasonic b.
Eddy-Current 5
Mechanical Properties a.
US RT b.
YS Rr i
2 ATfACHMENT I (Contd)
Assembly Component Attribute Inspected c.
% Elongation d.
US (650 F)
YS (650 F) e.
6.
Burst Test 7
Flare Test 8.
Grain Size 9
Corrosion Test 10.
Hydride Orientation 11.
Anoy Composition 12.
O, N and H Content 13 Metallic Impurities
- 14. EBC 15 Surface Defects
- 16. Straightness 3
Fuel Rod Certi-1.
Heliun Leak Check fication (Prior 2.
Weld Defects to Release for 3
Rod Diameter l
Assembly Loading) k.
Rod Length 5
End Cap Alignment 6.
Rod Straightness 7
Rod Identification 8.
Decontamination Check 9
Appearance 10.
Confirmation of Process Records and QC Test Speci-fication Data J
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