Simply stated, online remote advanced nuclear power plant welding consulting and support are your online remote welding engineering department. It uses email, phone, fax, video conferencing and an engineer who have a welding engineering degree, a materials engineering degree, and 10 years of nuclear power plant welding fabrication experience, to help you establish and specify advanced nuclear power plant welding requirements, answer technical welding questions, and advise your designers, engineers, procurement, fabrication, quality and inspection personnel on matters of welding for the design, procurement, fabrication, and inspection of advanced nuclear power plant weldments. A weldment is any product, structure, component, part or assembly joined by welding.
The online remote welding engineering department is a convenient, reliable, time and cost saving resource where nuclear energy companies, welding fabricators in the nuclear supply chain, and companies that operate and or maintain nuclear energy generating facilities can use to get the right answers to welding questions, or solutions to welding problems without having a welding engineer travel to their location or maintain a local onsite full-time welding engineering department and staff.
Because of health, safety, and quality concerns, all activities related to the design, procurement, fabrication, welding, testing, and inspection of nuclear power plant components are performed in accordance with the American Society of Mechanical Engineers code (ASME CODE), and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) requirements, by following a written quality assurance program, which requires activity documentation and traceability of who did what, when, where, and how.
Nuclear power plant component welding, design, fabrication and quality questions and problems can come up when least expected. Therefore, having a welding engineer who has the right answers and solutions, and a welding engineering degree, and nuclear power plant welding and quality experience, are essential to avoid welding, design, fabrication and quality mistakes and their consequences.
Unfortunately, there is a lack of welding knowledge and a chronic shortage of welding engineers in industry, including the nuclear industry, because the science and technology of welding are not generally taught at the four-year university or college level to engineering students except to those few students in a welding engineering degree program. And these few students are choosing other welding engineering career paths due to the uncertainty in building new advanced nuclear power plants. Also adding to the welding engineering shortage are the retiring welding engineers who have nuclear power plant welding experience.
As a result, most nuclear energy companies and potential supplier firms in the nuclear supply chain that design and fabricate weldments typically have no one on their staff who has a welding engineering degree. This limits their ability to interpret and apply the welding, quality and fabrication requirements in ASME Codes and NRC requirements, and setup the required Quality Assurance Program, and obtain the required Certificate of Authorization to use the ASME Code Symbol Stamp, needed to qualify as nuclear suppliers to design, procure, fabricate, weld, test and inspect nuclear power plant components.
Some of those promoting nuclear energy as a clean energy source to use in home, business, and industrial applications, including to power AI data centers, and to supplement intermittent wind and solar, seems to be ignoring the elephant in the room. That is, how are these reactors and plants going to be built in the numbers needed and at a reasonable cost without the skills of welders capable of qualifying, certifying, and welding to nuclear codes and standards, and without welding engineers who have welding engineering degrees and nuclear energy welding experience? There has always been a chronic shortage of these individuals in the United States, sometimes resulting in companies hiring unqualified individuals who make welding mistakes costing millions.
A case in point: The welding mistakes and resulting welding problems contributing to the fiasco in building the Vogtle nuclear power plant that drove Westinghouse into bankruptcy, and was billions of dollars over budget, and years late. Search the internet using: “Witness to the Origins of a Huge Nuclear Construction Flop”.
The bottom line: Nuclear power plants cannot be built without welding, and the welds must have high integrity and performance for health and safety reasons. Therefore, a welding engineer who has a welding engineering degree must support nuclear designers to ensure that assemblies designed to be welded, are designed for weldability to avoid welding mistakes and their problems. In other words, design in welding quality to build in welding quality. Otherwise, the revival of nuclear power will be limited and unsustainable.