When you are performing nuclear power plant maintenance, every minute counts. The ultimate goal is to increase the safety of your personnel by reducing exposure time, while still ensuring your part is 100% up to task. Outdated sealing methods can severely hamper progress during an outage. For example, OEM hatch covers often require cumbersome Room Temperature Vulcanizing (RTV), […]
Simplify and Streamline your Shroud Head Bolt Latching/Unlatching
The latching/unlatching of shroud head bolts is a critical task during boiling water reactors (BWRs) refueling outages. Traditional methods for assembly and disassembly can be time-intensive and consume overhead crane time. To address these challenges, Preferred Engineering has developed an innovative shroud head bolt wrench designed to streamline the process and enhance operational flexibility. The Preferred Engineering Shroud […]
Improve Safety with Preferred Engineering’s Strongbacks
Personnel safety in nuclear power plants is always on our minds at Preferred Engineering, especially for maintenance and handling of large reactor components. To support operational safety and efficiency during BWR reactor maintenance, we offer robust strongback solutions designed to reduce radiation exposure and ease component handling. The Cattlechute Strongback provides high-strength support designed with either an integral […]
The Control Rod Blade Rack: A Critical Storage Solution
The Control Rod Blade Rack from Preferred Engineering is an essential component for securely and efficiently storing control rods during periods of maintenance, refueling, or reactor shutdown. Control rods are integral to the safe operation of Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs), where they play a critical role in controlling the fission process by absorbing excess neutrons. During times when […]
Get it Together: Here’s How to Consolidate Handling and Inspection in Your Facility
In the demanding environment of a nuclear reactor, efficiency isn’t just about speeding up processes, it’s about ensuring that every operation is conducted with the utmost precision and safety. The less time and effort required for handling processes, the smoother and safer the overall operation can run. That’s where Preferred Engineering’s Self-Contained Fuel Inspection Work Cell comes in. […]
Pro-Nuclear “ADVANCE Act” is signed into law
President Joe Biden has signed the ‘‘Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy Act of 2024,” or ADVANCE Act. This legislation speeds up the permitting process and creates new incentives for the buildout of nuclear reactors. An article examining this significant legislative action was recently published in Power Engineering. According to the article, this act will […]
Preferred Engineering’s Best Practices for Jet Pump Plugs
The jet pump plug is an essential tool used in the maintenance of Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs) in nuclear power plants. The jet pump system involves driving water through a nozzle to create a high-velocity jet, which in turn induces a lower pressure that draws additional water along with it, effectively mixing and circulating the water. Jet pump […]
Emergency Removal of a Main Steam Line Plug: A Case Study
Preferred Engineering has decades of experience in the nuclear industry with the Main Steam Line Plug, and sometimes unique situations arise that make our our expertise in installation and removal especially important. A recent project required us to employ an MSLP Emergency Removal tool during the installation process. One of the latch mechanisms on the plug jammed during […]
Learning from Preferred’s Main Steam Line Plug Operating Experience
Preferred Engineering has extensive experience in the nuclear industry with the installation and removal of Main Steam Line Plugs. Over the years, we’ve developed a number of best practices that are key to maximizing efficiency and cutting critical path time. Here are some of the most important procedures we’ve established in recent MSLP projects: Camera Positioning Camera placement […]
Preferred Fuels the Future: A NYC Data Center Project Journey
In New York City, ACS has provided Preferred’s fuel oil equipment to a data center who is a repeat customer. Known for quality, durability (in the harshest conditions and even surviving natural disasters), and redundancy, Preferred’s fuel oil equipment will power emergency generators, which are the required power source for all data center applications. We’re proud to showcase […]