USA’s Cook Nuclear Plant was this year’s winner of the NEI TIP Maintenance Award. Cook Plant pioneered a first-of-a-kind evolution for nuclear industry maintenance with the installation of a 250-ton bridge crane into the turbine building of an operating plant. This is the second 250-ton crane at Cook, and it will support a reduced shutdown time during the 2016 Unit 2 refueling outage when all three low pressure turbine rotors and the high pressure turbine rotor will be replaced.

The lifting set-up employed multiple telescoping gantry systems and a hydraulic turntable to lift and rotate components approximately 60 feet above the turbine floor between two operating units.

Cook partnered with a team of third-party experts, including a rigging and lifting expert to provide independent reviews and used constant LED level monitoring and surveying from multiple stations to continuously confirm adherence to operating limits. The team also developed a full-scale off-site performance demonstration to validate the concept, lifting 125 percent of the expected load through the entire range of motions in preparation for the actual installation.

In all, the team performed 290 lifts while the plant was on-line, 86 of which were classified as high risk. In all, more than five million pounds were lifted without any safety or human performance issues.

This new maintenance achievement is a safety improvement over previous practices, which required partial removal of the turbine building roof or siding. By installing the crane while the plant is on-line, the team freed up equipment that is in high demand during a refueling outage, therefore not impacting duration or cost of the outage.

“This team worked very well and always kept safety as their number one priority, I appreciate the efforts of all involved during this crane installation project,” said Scott Dailey, engineering projects manager at Cook. “All future outages will continue to realize additional cost savings since a single point of vulnerability has been eliminated through the addition of the second bridge crane in the turbine building.”