The qualification testing of the AP1000 reactor coolant pump included 50 service cycles and more than 500 total operating hours at the Curtiss-Wright Electro-Mechanical Division (EMD) facility in Cheswick, Pennsylvania.

The reactor coolant pumps can now be installed at Sanmen Unit 1 in China, the world’s first AP1000 reactor. The first two reactor collant pumps for Sanmen 1 are expected to be shipped in the second quarter of 2012.

“This marks a major milestone for Curtiss-Wright and especially our EMD employees, who have worked so tenaciously to develop and produce this first-of-a-kind technology,” said Martin Benante, Curtiss-Wright chairman and CEO. “We are proud to be a critical and significant player in building the safest and most advanced nuclear reactors in the world, while meeting the energy needs of China and other countries across the globe.”

SNPTC chairman Wang Binghua said that the successful completion of the reactor coolant pump endurance test has demonstrated that SNPTC , Westinghouse Electric and Curtiss-Wright’s EMD “have jointly overcome the technological challenges for the AP1000 RCPs, which are among the most critical components of the AP1000 design.”

Curtiss-Wright will build 16 reactor coolant pumps for the first two AP1000 plants in China at its expanded EMD facility in Cheswick. Each plant has two AP1000 reactors, with each reactor holding four reactor coolant pumps.

Sanmen 1 is the flagship AP1000 reactor, with seven more reactors already under construction in China and the US.