Manufactured by Toshiba’s Keihin manufacturing facility in Yokohama, Japan, the core barrel resides inside the reactor vessel of the AP1000 plant and houses the reactor’s fuel.
The production of core barrel, which represents the first component manufactured for the pressurized water reactor (PWR) according to the highest standards, was completed at the end of January 2014, well before the April shipping schedule.
The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)-approved AP1000 is a 1,100MW electric pressurized-water reactor, and includes passive safety features that would cool down the reactor following an accident without the requirement for electricity or human intervention.
Westinghouse, along with CB&I is currently building four new nuclear units in the US, with two units each at V.C. Summer and Southern Company’s two-unit Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant in Georgia, US, PennEnergy reports.
