Areva's Forged Documents: Must Resample A Representitive Sample Of Components

17 U.S. Nuclear Units Have Components Forged at Site Under Investigation

01/11/2017 | Aaron Larson

Although AREVA recently disclosed that 17 U.S. nuclear power plant units have installed components that were forged at the Le Creusot facility in France—a forge that has been under scrutiny due to questionable quality assurance documentation and carbon segregation irregularities in some parts manufactured at the site—the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) does not consider the situation an immediate safety concern.

“We are confident at this time that there are no safety concerns for U.S. nuclear power plants raised by the investigations in France,” David McIntyre, public affairs officer for the NRC, wrote in a blog post about the revelation.

“Our confidence is based on the U.S. material qualification process, preliminary structural evaluations of reactor components under scrutiny in France, U.S. material aging-management programs, our participation in a multinational inspection of Creusot Forge, and information supplied by AREVA about the documentation anomalies. Also, the components supplied to U.S. plants have performed well and inspections during their operating life have revealed no safety issues,” he continued.

The components in question are mostly replacement reactor vessel heads, replacement steam generator components, and pressurizers (Figure 1)….