OVERVIEW

BCP Plant Services division has a long history of developing innovative solutions and specialty tooling for outages and turnarounds for emergent and identified field issues. Specializing in seal table work, the Plant Services team has expertise and tooling that is applicable to small-diameter tubing cleaning and retrieval needs–this includes nuclear flux thimbles, spent fuel pool (SFP) chase drains, and other small diameter tubing locations.

CLIENT ISSUE/PROBLEM

Reactor Engineering at D.C. Cook asked BCP to conduct a Research and Development (R&D) project to develop a method and/or tooling for retrieving a lost section of test cable inside a thimble.

SOLUTION

BCP worked closely with the client to develop the tooling and procedures necessary to retrieve the lost testable. Our team designed, constructed, and performed full-scale mock-up testing prior to actual on-site implementation. The full-scale mock-up duplicated the thimble size, length, and geometry, and actually lost test cable positioning within this thimble.

CLIENT BENEFITS

The BCP team retrieved the lost test cable on the first attempt at the seal table. This successful retrieval program saved valuable outage time and returned the thimble location for use by the plant during their following fuel cycle.