Advanced Nuclear Fuels

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The Advanced Nuclear Fuels GmbH (ANF) is a subsidiary of Framatome GmbH, formerly Areva GmbH. ANF ​​manufactures fuel elements, intermediate products and fuel element components for nuclear power plants on behalf of Framatome for the European and worldwide market and thus serves to supply nuclear power plants with nuclear fuel. In addition, the international business with technology, products and services has been expanded for years. The company's headquarters are in Lingen (Ems) . Another plant of the company is located in Karlstein am Main .

Locations

In the Lingen fuel assembly plant , which is not far from the Emsland nuclear power plant , fuel assemblies are manufactured using uranium dioxide as a nuclear fuel . The plant was put into operation in 1979. To date, more than 37,000 fuel assemblies with over 6.7 million fuel rods have been manufactured for pressurized and boiling water reactors in Germany and other Western European countries. The manufacturing process is divided into four main areas.

During powder production, uranium hexafluoride (UF 6 ) is converted into uranium oxide powder. The so-called dry conversion process is used here, which is characterized by the fact that no uranium-containing process waste or emissions arise during the entire manufacturing process.

So-called “green compacts” are pressed from the uranium oxide powder obtained in the tablet production process . Sintering (burning in a sintering furnace) at over 1,780 ° C gives the tablets the required density and strength.

In the fuel rod production, the tablets are filled into cladding tubes that are welded on one side. The filled cladding tube is then flooded with helium and welded to a second plug under pressure.  

In the fuel element production, the fuel rods are assembled with other components and structural parts to form fuel elements.

The fuel assemblies are designed to ensure the required mechanical quality and integrity in an environment of high pressures, temperatures and neutron fluxes. They have to safely enclose the radioactive fission products produced during nuclear fission and efficiently transfer the thermal energy generated in the fuel to the coolant for further use. In addition, all neutron physical requirements must be met in order to optimally enable the nuclear fission process and its control. Experts from Framatome GmbH in Erlangen are working on the fuel element design and layout.

Spacers for pressurized water and boiling water reactor fuel elements are produced in Karlstein. All turned parts for the cladding tubes are also manufactured there.

The product range essentially consists of spacers, head and foot pieces, water channels for boiling water reactors (BWR) and assembly parts such as end caps for fuel rods, rings, screws and other small parts for the worldwide Framatome market. The spacers consist of precision-stamped structural strips made of Zircaloy or Inconel, which are assembled into grids and laser-welded. These serve to hold the fuel rods in the fuel assembly at the same distance. The head and foot pieces fix the fuel element in the reactor and ensure safe handling.

Karlstein has been manufacturing all types of fuel assembly components for PWR and BWR in a wide variety of designs since 1995: that is more than 500,000 spacers, more than 40,000 support structures, more than 50,000 heads and feet, more than 11,000,000 turned parts.

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