Demonstration Glovebox Fabrication

Project Summary

Our fabrication team paired with the Burns & McDonnell custom equipment design team to fabricate, assemble and test a nuclear enclosure (glovebox). The initiative was part of a qualifications program by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to increase the number of NQA-1 qualified fabricators for containment systems. Our Federal Quality Assurance Program (FQAP) was utilized during this project to achieve full design and fabrication ASME NQA-1 compliance.

We procured new equipment and tools for fabrication, inspections and testing, and created new spaces in our facility, including a storage area for controlling the inventory of procured materials, a dedicated stainless steel fabrication area, and an assembly and functional testing area.

Our team developed relationships with NQA-1 qualified suppliers for procurement of stainless steel, window glass, gasket materials, glove ports and special services such as waterjet cutting stainless steel sheets and machining vendors for small and large parts.

Welding stainless steel sheet material to meet the flatness requirements for leak-tight surfaces requires learning by trial and error. To minimize the risk of rework, we worked with a glovebox welding consultant and an assembly/testing consultant to assist with fabrication and testing tools and techniques, guiding us through fabrication, assembly and testing leak-tight stainless steel enclosures for the nuclear industry. We built a small sample fabrication glovebox to learn how to minimize weld distortion and then applied the lessons to the demonstration glovebox.

Our teams developed procedures for special fabrication and testing processes, including capacitive discharge stud welding, weld distortion minimization, base metal weld repair, shop travelers, cleaning, structural proof testing, and dimensional inspections. Our design team developed detailed shop fabrication drawings using the NNSA’s build-to-print drawings and defined the workflow for procurement, fabrication, inspection, assembly and testing steps.

Together, the teams fabricated a glovebox that required minimal rework and satisfied client requirements, allowing us to compete moving forward for design and fabrication for federal projects requiring NQA-1 quality assurance compliance.