OVERVIEW
BWX Technologies, Inc. (BWXT) has been continuously engineering critical components for commercial nuclear power plants for over 50 years. Although BWXT may be best-known for its extremely successful Replacement Steam Generator (SG) designs, our engineering capabilities and experience extend well beyond SG design to include services for a variety of ASME Sec. III and Sec. VIII components, including safety-related and balance of plant Heat Exchangers (HXs), feedwater heaters, pressurizers and Reactor Vessels (RVs).
APPLICATIONS
Utilities can benefit from BWXT’s engineering service capabilities in the following areas:
- 3-dimensional CFD analysis
- Assessment of in-service degradation
- Elastic-plastic analysis
- Field modifications
- Life-cycle management
- Thermal hydraulic and flow-induced vibration engineering
- Piping analysis
- RELAP5 analysis
- Seismic analysis
- Structural engineering analysis
- Transient thermal analysis
CAPABILITY AND TOOLS
Engineering services analyses at BWXT are performed by the same engineers who design and support the fabrication of BWXT’s nuclear SGs, HXs and other equipment. These engineers have extensive knowledge of the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel and Piping Code and have developed strong analytical capabilities. They provide a depth to our engineering services capabilities that stand-alone engineering organizations simply cannot match.
Our Engineering Services organization draws from a diverse pool of nearly 80 technical employees. Spanning several generations, 25 percent of employees have 20+ years of service, 25 percent have 10 to 20 years of service, seven percent have 5-10 years of service and the remainder have five years of service or less. Ninety percent of these employees have a mix of doctorate, masters and bachelors degrees, and the remaining 10 percent have technical diplomas.
Our large share of new employees is an indication of the recent growth that BWXT has experienced in its engineering organization. It also serves to demonstrate BWXT’s support for student-training programs, and our solid track record of hiring new-grad engineers to engage in new ideas and ways of thinking. Lastly, BWXT actively practices a knowledge transfer culture by engaging our senior employees with our younger, future leaders.