OREANDA-NEWS. December 14, 2007. Elemash (Mashinostroitelny Zavod, Elektrostal, Moscow region) accepted for operation new fuel production equipment – an automated system for careful placement of uranium fuel pellets into molybdenum trays and a stand for production of fuel element bundles for WWER-1000 fuel assemblies.

The head of the Central Laboratory for Automation and Mechanization of Elemash Yuri Shulman says that the system prevents split and deformation of pellets before their transportation for sintering. This is one more step by Elemash towards automation of its pellet production and transition to dry pellet pressing.

The stand is part of the automated complex that is being developed by the plant’s Assembly Department. The system assembles fuel elements much quicker than its foreign analogues and can put them into eight-lattice framework – something nobody has done so far. The Central Laboratory for Automation and Mechanization of Elemash has designed own original software for the stand.

The head of the Assembly Department Ashot Grigoryants says that the stand meets all international quality and efficiency standards.

The solutions applied by the stand will help Elemash to start serial production of fuel assemblies for Temelin, a nuclear power plant in the Czech Republic to be supplied with fuel by TVEL Corporation.