Furmanite, a specialist engineering and technical services company, has successfully overhauled 750 valves on-site at the UK’s largest Magnox nuclear power station. The contract was undertaken at Magnox North’s Wylfa site at Anglesey in North Wales, during the annual outage, and involved work in the turbine, boiler and numerous other areas of the plant. The substantial valve overhaul programme included safety valves ranging in size from 1.5 to 10in, isolation valves from 0.5 to 21in, and butterfly valves up to 50in in size. The majority of these valves were overhauled on-site, including disassembling, inspection, lapping and reassembling. The remaining valves were taken to Furmanite’s Warrington workshop to be overhauled and to allow insurance witnessing and approval by Zurich following commissioning on Furmanite’s test rig. The work was carried out by Furmanite SQEP (Suitably Qualified and Experienced Personnel) technicians who have been audited and are experienced in working safely as part of a team in nuclear environments. They were supported by a site management team (comprising a site manager, quality engineer, health and safety engineer, supervisors and a technical clerk) who were on site before, during and after the outage.
