PRODUCTS

New Transporters Improve NUHOMS-type ISFSI Installations

Wheelift Systems, a Doerfer company, has developed technology that improves the safety and efficiency of spent fuel cask transfer to independent spent fuel storage installation (ISFSI) facilities where the NUHOMS horizontal storage modules are used. (NUHOMS is the registered trademark of TransNuclear Inc.)

According to Mel Terry, Wheelift Systems Group senior systems application specialist, Constellation Energy will be one of the first in the industry to adopt the new ISFISI cask transporting method.

With Wheelift’s new self-propelled modular transporter (SPMT), the heavy load transporters can operate in severely confined spaces on any kind of floor surface.

The SPMT has an all-directional steer, fluid-equalizing suspension that makes it possible to have narrower aisles between rows of horizontal storage modules.

The specialized computer-controlled axle assemblies can rotate on-center while under full load. During alignment, all-directional corrections of less than +/- 1/16th on-the-inch are the norm.

Multi-axle SPMTs produced by European manufacturers like Scheuerle and Goldhofer have been used in the nuclear industry for years to move reactor vessel loads that often weigh more than a thousand tons. Wheelift’s miniaturized in-plant version is considerably smaller but has the same or greater load capacity as the European SPMTs.

An onboard diesel-driven generator supplies electric power for the transporter and serves the transfer cask ram’s built-in hydraulic power unit.

To enhance operation during fuel loading and during precision alignment at the ISFSI, the engine can be shut down and a shore power extension cord plugged in for near-silent operation.

Wheelift Systems, a Doerfer company; www.wheelift.com.

Nuclear Power International March, 2009