Nuclear Services

SOCOTEC’s personnel have worked extensively both on programs for Life Cycle Management and individual component life cycle assessments. Evaluations of specific equipment have included buried piping and infrastructure, rotating equipment, cables, large NSSS equipment, and others. Programmatically, SOCOTEC personnel have developed methods to systematically assess degraded conditions. This has included training of personnel and implementation of programs.

This topic is particularly pertinent as operating plants extend their licenses and look at maintaining high operating reliability and containing costs. This places a premium on the quality of decision-making that assures all expenditures are focused on maintaining safety and reliability. Since 2014, SOCOTEC engineers have been working with EPRI to develop innovative tools to predict the remaining life of critical plant assets—components, systems and structures—as well as tools to develop asset strategies and perform financial evaluations for informed decision making. In conjunction with Argonne National Laboratory, we have developed a system for real-time monitoring of critical plant fluid and electrical systems to allow operators to predict and assess issues before they occur.

SOCOTEC has provided services to owners to assist them in assessing the condition of their concrete structures. Services include evaluation of particular causes of concrete aging such as alkali-silica reaction, freeze-thaw, calcium leaching, rebar deterioration. Since 2012, SOCOTEC engineers have researched long term radiation effects on nuclear plant concrete, developing a methodology for predicting and evaluating concrete conditions for plants extending their operating lives beyond 60 years. In addition, our experts have been working on new technologies for concrete structural monitoring, including digital image correlation, image change detection, and fiberoptic and wireless strain network measurements.

SOCOTEC’s services include:
-Long-term monitoring, and crack assessment
-Core sample analysis, compression testing, chemical analysis and petrographic examination
-Pre- and Post-tensioned concrete monitoring and aging assessments, including tendon cable assessment
-Cable assessment
-Rebar corrosion prediction
-Permeability assessments

SOCOTEC engineers have performed a wide variety of evaluations for nuclear plant systems, structures and components. Examples include:

-Structural assessment of plant buildings: containments, vacuum buildings, refuel cavities, off-gas stacks, floors and steel structures
-Spent fuel pool degradation assessment for boric acid corrosion
-Heavy load analysis of concrete floors and pads
-High energy line breaks effects on buildings
-Extreme loads (flooding, seismic, design basis threats) analysis
-Investigations into mechanical system/component performance, failure and aging.
-Thermal hydraulic analysis of high energy piping systems and components
-Piping and pressure vessel stress analysis and code qualification

A number of plants have experienced leakage from fuel pools and transfer canals, leading to tritium contamination. Such leaks are often very small and usually below the measurement threshold available to in-plant installed systems. SOCOTEC personnel have designed test configurations and conducted long-term tests to quantify the leakage from pools down to small quantifiable amounts. SOCOTEC personnel have also performed remote inspection and direct inspection of transfer canal liners to identify leakage areas and develop repair strategies. Long-term leakage from spent fuel pools often raise questions relative to effects on concrete and reinforcing bars as a result of boric acid corrosion. SOCOTEC has performed a number of assessments to predict damage, including extraction of concrete samples deep into the spent fuel pool wall, and assessment of concrete performance from decommissioned nuclear plant spent fuel pool facilities.

As nuclear plant owners are faced with complex challenges ranging to in-vessel component qualification, primary coolant loop assessments for power uprate and life extension or degradation from in-service corrosion mechanisms, the solution to such problems can be challenging and complex.

To assist plant owners, SOCOTEC experts work alongside the owner to assist in the technical assessment of NSSS evaluations or act in an independent advisory role with third-party review services.

Our projects have ranged from steam dryers in BWRs, vessel nozzle issues, steam generator tube degradation, RCP mechanical seal failure, and others.