A very significant portion of company experience is in the ongoing support of operating reactors.

There are numerous critical inspection activities on the reactor core itself which continually require the development and supply of custom tooling using state of the art examination processes.

We are relied upon to develop and supply a variety of such custom tooling specifically designed for the handling abilities and operating conditions within an operating reactor core.

This multi-station tool calibration and handling system is installed immediately beneath the reactor core. It indexes to provide one of 13 individual stations to receive custom fuel channel inspection tooling, where operation may be simulated, or the equipment maintained, before operation within the reactor core.

With an aging fleet of nuclear reactors there is a heavy investment in maintenance activities to keep the power units operating at their peak capacities. Many of these activities have evolved since the original reactor design and have required the development of many unique solutions to enable maintenance personnel to accomplish many unique tasks.

Operator and tooling access to the reactor face is critical to a variety of maintenance activities during reactor outages.This modular platform system is seismically qualified to lock on to the existing Fuelling Machine Bridge and can be quickly installed in numerous configurations depending on the particular operation and fuel channel location which access is required for.

It has been demonstrated that nuclear reactors can be significantly refurbished, and can operate well beyond original design life. With the CANDU style reactors this involves the actual cutting and removal of hundreds of reactor core pressure and calandria tubes, and associated components. ODIM Numet has designed and supplied most of the major handling equipment for these reactor face operations, as well as many of the tool sets for cutting, welding and other operations that are critical to this refurbishment process.

This fully automated, self-aligned, ODIM Numet custom cutting tool is at the heart of CANDU reactor refurbishment. It reaches in and severs the fuel channels from their end-fittings so that the reactor core may be fully re-tubed for extended operating life.