UK-based Forth Engineering has secured two separate contracts to carry out work on behalf of Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) company Magnox. Forth successfully tendered to design, manufacture and provide waste retrieval solutions in Magnox wet vaults at the Hinkley Point NPP, and also won another contract to design and install active effluent pumping facilities at Magnox’s SGHWR and Dragon reactors in Winfrith.
Linda Sapsford, head of procurement at Magnox, added: “We’re delighted to be collaborating with Forth as we safely decommission our sites at Hinkley and Winfrith. One of our goals at Magnox is to add social value by creating employment and supply chain opportunities around our sites and across the UK, so it’s great to be working with an innovative home-grown company.”
The wet vault retrieval project has been split into two areas: one to concentrate on infection prevention and control (HAI) waste management and the other focused on water management.
The HAI management work will see the team supply a number of skips in the wet vaults with unique lifting arrangements, as well as chutes to help segregate waste in the vault. Further to this, the team will produce a specially designed fuel box which can be controlled with a remotely operated vehicle, or a long reach tool. Forth will also provide lighting rigs and live camera feeds to improve the usability of all equipment.
The water management element of the contract is divided into three sub-projects: to design extra pre-filtration units to support the existing systems; to produce a water recirculation system as an additional means of pumping vault water; and to design and create a turbidity abatement system to remove contaminated water from the sorting tray in a controlled and timely manner.
For the active affluent pumping facilities contract, Forth will create a process where active liquor can be transferred from the SGHWR and Dragon reactors in the Winfrith plant to 1,250-litre intermediate bulk containers and taken off site for safe disposal.
Forth has worked with Magnox on a number of occasions in the past 12 months which included devising a robotic arm to sift through debris in hazardous environments, and the creation of a remotely operated machine which could also remove waste from hazardous environments on a larger scale.