Landmark departure for Sheffield Forgemasters
THE first ever UK-manufactured component for China’s nuclear power programme has started its 10,000 mile journey.
A uniquely designed cast stainless steel pump casing made by Sheffield Forgemasters International (SFIL) has been despatched from the 200-year-old engineering specialist’s site heralding Britain’s first involvement in China’s nuclear power programme.
The casing, which is one of 18 produced for Curtiss-Wright Flow Control Company on behalf of Westinghouse Electric Company, left Sheffield for a trans-continental sea voyage to finally dock at China’s sea port of Dalian.
All of the 16-tonne reactor coolant pump castings will see service on China’s Westinghouse AP1000TM nuclear power plants at Sanmen in Zhejiang province and Haiyang in Shandong province.
They are also set to feature on all future AP1000TM plants globally.
Shaun Gray, senior sales manager at SFIL’s Engineering division, said: “The process of manufacturing the reactor coolant pump casings is very refined and the AP1000 castings have taken substantial input from our technical director Ian Nicholls and his team design teams to produce what are really quite complex structures in terms of mechanical and metallurgical requirements.
“These pumps are structurally integral to the reactor and have many stresses placed on them aside from those created by pumping pressurised coolant at a rate of 65 to 95 thousand gallons per minute.”
Mike Tynan, chief executive of Westinghouse Electric Company, said: “We currently have orders for 10 AP1000 plants and we’re also seeing significant interest in the UK, where we have now established our dedicated UK team.”
SFIL worked with EMD, a business unit of Curtiss-Wright Flow Control, in the details of the development of the safety critical castings, and was commissioned by the company to produce the stage-one pump casings because of its expertise in casting manufacture and materials development.
