The nuclear safety Authority has requested the operator to proceed under three months of strength checks of the funds of the steam generators.

World | 18.10.2016 at 16.25 • updated 18.10.2016 at 16h58 | By Jean-Michel Bezat

The French nuclear safety Authority (ASN) confirmed that it had asked the operator to carry out controls, within three months, the strength of the fund of the steam generators (SGS).

these are, in effect, segregation of carbon likely to weaken the steel of this important component of the nuclear island of the plant, since it produces steam that is sent into the turbine for producing the electricity.

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These five “slices” are part of the ten-eight of which have been noted these anomalies in the forging of the parts. Each reactor has three or four generators according to its power, the total GV concerned is forty-six : twenty-six have been forged in Japan by JFCC for the account of Areva, and twenty in the factory of le Creusot (Saône-et-Loire) of Areva, which is the subject of an in-depth audit for months by the experts of the group of nuclear and EDF’s.

On the ten-eight reactors concerned by the warning of the ASN launched before the summer, six have been inspected and have been able to restart with the agreement of the authority of nuclear and the other seven are in the course of the inspection and waiting for a restart.

The electrician, who had programmed these stops between the end of 2016 and 2017, wants to make the checks before entering the cold season so that the park of fifty-eight reactors to be available between January and march, the months when the consumption is often the highest. EDF may also want to register the loss of revenue related to the shutdown of reactors in its accounts 2016 rather than defer to its fiscal year 2017.

It is also expected that the conclusions of the ASN concerning the resistance of the vessel of the EPR of Flamanville (Manche), of which the top of the lid and the bottom have also a too high concentration of carbon. Areva, which has forged the piece in le Creusot, and EDF, which has already been installed in the reactor building, must submit the latest results of their tests at the end of the year. ASN will rule at the end of the first half of 2017 on its compliance – or non – standards drastic that apply to pressure equipment nuclear.

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