Sheffield Forgemasters goes nuclear

CAST stainless steel pump casings made by Sheffield Forgemasters (SFIL) for China’s new wave of nuclear power plants are to be rolled out globally.

The 16-tonne reactor coolant pump castings will first see service in China’s new-wave of Westinghouse AP1000TM nuclear power plants at Sanmen in Zhejiang province and Haiyang in Shandong province. They will also feature on all future AP1000TM plants globally.

Sheffield-based SFIL has now been commissioned to produce 18 of the stage-one pump casings because of its expertise in casting manufacture and materials development.

Shaun Gray, senior sales manager at SFIL’s engineering division, said:

“What we have achieved with the AP1000 project is a first for SFIL the production of cast safety critical pump casings which will be incorporated into the main reactor system.

“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.”