Par
Solène Lavenu
Published on
Oct 18, 2024 at 7:52 a.m.
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A hall of 6,650 m2and yet, they are only 25 employeesengineering and production combined, to work in the TN Eagle Factory. Thursday October 17, 2024l’brand new factory 4.0 was inaugurated.
“I am happy and proud to present this factory to you,” commented Frédéric de Agostini, the director from Orano NPS, with tears in his eyes and a quavering voice.
Fully automatic
The event represented a “big day”, for him, for the Cotentinfor the region and even “for France”assured the director of Orano NPS, a subsidiary of Orano.
“Above all, this marks the end of the blood and tears” shed until now to make packaging for transport et dry storage of spent fuel. The TN Eagle Factory is unique. The TN eagle from Orano aims to be revolutionary.
Here, the final assembly is without welding or machining, with ten times fewer parts than its predecessors. It was imagined by Orano, from the end of 2020and will now be assembled here by Orano NPS, the premiers tests were operated on the end of July 2024. “The cartoon that we presented is real today,” enthused Frédéric de Agostini. A real performance.
The market is very competitive, and with the delays, the additional cost, the unhappy customers, we could have exited the packaging market… But instead, we took the bull by the horns and decided to completely transform ourselves with a new concept and local assembly. This is our second transformation.
In the TN Eagle Factory, mechanical arms, grippers, machines. Impressive. In the center, a gigantic tilter allowing the 100-ton cylinder to be extended or straightened.
Next to it, the machine metallizes, here it paints or places the resin blocks to avoid gamma and neutron radiation. There, she makes the silicone seal. The hall is dotted with workshops, eight in total. Every TN eagle will undergo each stage.
Prospects and bright future announced
The first four TN eagles have not yet left the Cherbourg factory, but they are “already sold”, assures Orano NPS. Japan, the United States and Switzerland have already placed orders. Belgium should follow. “We had customers who came to attend the visit to the TN Eagle Factory, we must have convinced them,” smiled Frédéric de Agostini. In total, around a hundred “boxes” are “already ordered,” assures the president of Orano NPS. But the company aims higher. Around twenty TN eagles will be released in 2025. Around thirty the following year. The objective: to produce 500 TN eagles in the next ten years.
More projects
“It could be more,” Frédéric de Agostini allows himself to dream. He’s already thinking bigger. Each component is manufactured in parallel, in the four corners of the planet. “Assembling a TN Eagle takes three months, the additional twelve months required after receipt of the order is the time to receive the parts. Obviously too many things are outsourced,” explains the director.
The forged ones, the metal parts such as the cylinder, come from Italy and Japan. There is the paint, with its unique thermal characteristics which allow heat to be evacuated, the anti-corrosion coating… The Cherbourg factory could then expand. “We have some ideas for making certain components here in Cherbourg,” assures Frédéric de Agostini. An expansion, a connection to the rail to transport certain parts by train from the port to Valognes, it is even rumored that there would be space left nearby for another factory… There is no shortage of projects. To see which ones will come true.
The most incredible? Certainly the device for heating the shielding rings by induction to encircle them around the cylinder, the forged one. “During heating, the ring expands,” explains Ludovic Mariette, the project managerwe then have a few minutes to position it around the cylinder before it cools, this is shrinking. »
Simplicity, reliability
Next to all these mechanisms who work in silence, Man keeps watch. “ Automation adds security and reliability,” assures Ludovic Mariette.
According to requests, the dimensions packaging may vary and therefore the quantity of assemblies of spent nuclear fuel. The “steel boxes” can then reach 5 meters in height and 3 meters in diameter. They will support a load which sometimes reaches 300 to 400 degrees.
It takes three months, here in the Cherbourg (Manche) factory, to assemble them. At each stage, checks are carried outupon exit, the TN eagle must undergo a final waterproof test. Empty and charging.
They will then be able to receive spent fuel so that they can be transported or stored. “A hundred years. Maximum. This is the lifespan of the TN eagles,” explains Ludovic Mariette.
The first four will leave the Cherbourg 4.0 factory by the end of the year. About twenty in 2025. They will go towards Suissethe JapanTHEUNITED STATESor France.
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