OREANDA-NEWS.  On December 14, JSC Chepetsky Mechanical Plant (Glazov, Udmurtiya) was given the Russian Federation Government’s award for achievements in science and technology in 2006, the press service of TVEL reported. The award-giving ceremony was held in the House of Government in Moscow. A team of authors, employees of JSC CMP, was awarded together with specialists of VNIINM named after A.A. Bochvar and OKBM named after I.I. Afrikantov for "development of scientific basis, design and introduction for series production if high-effectiveness technologies for producing competitive products made of zirconium alloys for nuclear power."

In the framework of this project, the plant in 2000-2005 mastered a new metallurgical technology to produce zirconium and rolled products, implemented new rolling mills, vacuum-ark furnace, forging section and other unique equipment. All these have allowed improving production efficiency and achieve world level quality of products. In particular, a usable metal output has increased up to 79% from 45%.

High level of product quality conditioned the use of these products to develop new designs of fuel assemblies TVSA and TVS-2. Their application allowed to significantly improve economic indicators of nuclear reactors of the Russian designs.

The work was carried out in the framework of implementation of federal programs "Fuel and Energy" and "Effective Economy". The award is formalized by the RF Governmental Decree No 121 of February 22, 2007.