Mühleberg Nuclear Power Plant: Inspection of reactor pressure vessel completed
Bern (ots)
BKW Inc. has completed its ultrasonic tests on the reactor pressure vessel at Mühleberg nuclear power plant (KKM). No anomalies were detected. The safety of the plant is assured.
Towards the middle of August, suspected manufacturing faults in the base material of the pressure vessel of Reactor 3 at Belgium's Doel nuclear power plant were reported. This prompted the Federal Nuclear Safety Inspectorate (ENSI) to ask BKW to provide the manufacturing and test documentation. On 14 August 2012, BKW submitted this documentation to ENSI within the set deadline, showing that the KKM's pressure vessel had been in zero-defect order since going into operation. Nevertheless, to exclude any error in the manufacturing and inspection processes carried out before the facility went into operation, BKW inspected a representative area of the pressure vessel base material over the entire height of the cylinder. ENSI was immediately informed of these planned inspections, whereupon the supervisory authority defined the test conditions. The inspection was carried out in accordance with these criteria.
Evaluation of the ultrasonic data provided proof that the pressure vessel is intact and is not affected by manufacturing faults of the type suspected at Doel 3.
The test results have been submitted to ENSI.
Contact:
BKW AG
Phone 031 330 51 07