Brunswick Nuclear Station had a valve that was causing a room to be a locked high radiation area. They wished to implement a permanent shielding package in order to down post the room. The valve was set to be removed during an upcoming outage. The Radiation Protection team reached out to NPO for a solution. The goal was to reduce dose by 80% but in order to do that, it would require 2” (51 mm) thick T-Flex Tungsten shielding. If applied to directly, the shielding would be heavier than the valve and surrounding piping could handle. The shielding needed to be placed around the valve without touching it.
The solution was to build a steel frame around the valve and use multiple magnetic T-Flex Tungsten tiles to adhere to the steel frame. The steel frame essentially created a table around the valve, placing the entire weight of the shielding, around 640 lb (290 kg), on the floor. Each tile was crafted to fit around both pipe openings as well as the valve wheel. The intention of this shielding was to allow the area to be down posted. The shielding needed to be fixed, requiring a tool to remove or access. This was done by integrating steel hoops on the side of each tile. A lock or wire could then be used to secure all of the tiles to one another.
The result was a quick and easy to install, heavy duty shield box that reduced dose rates significantly.
