ML091670177

UNITED STATES 

NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 

OFFICE OF NUCLEAR REACTOR REGULATION 

OFFICE OF NUCLEAR MATERIAL SAFETY AND SAFEGUARDS 

OFFICE OF NEW REACTORS 

WASHINGTON, DC 20555-0001 

April 9, 2010 

NRC INFORMATION NOTICE 2010-08: WELDING AND NONDESTRUCTIVE 

EXAMINATION ISSUES 

ADDRESSEES 

All holders of an operating license or construction permit for a nuclear power reactor issued 

under Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR) Part 50, “Domestic Licensing of 

Production and Utilization Facilities,” except those who have permanently ceased operations 

and have certified that fuel has been permanently removed from the reactor vessel. 

All holders of or applicants for an early site permit, standard design certification, standard 

design approval, manufacturing license, or combined license issued under 10 CFR Part 52, 

“Licenses, Certifications, and Approvals for Nuclear Power Plants.” 

All holders of or applicants for a license for a fuel cycle facility issued pursuant to 

10 CFR Part 70, “Domestic Licensing of Special Nuclear Material.” 

PURPOSE 

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is issuing this information notice (IN) to alert 

addressees of recent operating experience involving welding and nondestructive examination. 

The NRC expects recipients to review the information for applicability to their planned activities 

and to consider actions to avoid similar problems. However, the suggestions contained in this 

IN are not NRC requirements; therefore, no specific action or written response is required. 

DESCRIPTION OF CIRCUMSTANCES 

Prairie Island Inservice Inspection

On October 1, 2008, at Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plan (Prairie Island), NRC inspectors 

reviewed the weld control records of the licensee contractor that performed machine gas 

tungsten arc welding of the structural weld overlay on a pressurizer surge nozzle dissimilar 

metal weld. The NRC inspectors noted that the documented weld speed on several weld 

control records had not changed as would be expected and as required by procedure. To 

control the weld heat input (an essential welding variable), it is necessary to control the weld 

head travel speed. The operating instruction specified that welders would use the values for 

piping/nozzle radius and the desired travel speed to determine the appropriate travel speed 

setting for the welding machine. In this case, contrary to welding procedure specifications, the 
IN 2010-08 

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welders did not determine and enter a new speed into the welding machine as the piping/nozzle 

radius increased as weld layers were added. Notwithstanding, a subsequent engineering 

evaluation determined that based on the travel speeds recorded in the weld control record, the 

resulting heat inputs were within the acceptable range. 

While evaluating this weld speed issue, the welding contractor discovered that incorrect welding 

parameters had been used to apply the first layer of the temper bead weld over a section of the 

ferritic nozzle adjacent to a stainless steel butter interface. Specifically, the welders had failed 

to change temper bead welding parameters when transitioning from the butter to the nozzle, a 

requirement which was not delineated in the operating instruction. The resulting heat input on 

the ferritic nozzle exceeded that allowed by the welding procedure specifications. As a result, 

the weld had to be removed (ground out) and rewelded. An extent of condition review showed 

that other structural weld overlays performed were applied correctly. 

Additional information is available in Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant, Units 1 and 2, 

NRC Integrated Inspection Report (IR) 05000282/2008005; 05000306/2008005, dated February 

10, 2009, and can be found on the NRC’s public website in the Agencywide Documents Access 

and Management System (ADAMS) under Accession No. ML090420033. 

Welding Issues at Louisiana Energy Services, National Enrichment Facility

In May 2009, the NRC inspectors identified welding issues involving the construction of the 

Louisiana Energy Services, National Enrichment Facility (LES NEF). The following are three 

examples of failure to implement American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) B31.3 

"Process Piping" requirements for welding and nondestructive examination. 

(1) Progressive radiography sampling was not proceduralzed to comply with the 

requirements of ASME B31.3. The NRC inspectors reviewed weld records and identified 

examples where a designated lot of random radiography samples was not expanded 

when results revealed a weld defect for work performed by a welder/welding operator in 

Category M Fluid Service. Corrective actions included performing additional radiography 

of production welds. 

(2) Welders were not qualified in accordance with ASME Section IX for manual tack welding 

of pipes, as required by ASME B31.3. Corrective actions included additional 

radiography of field welds with fused tacks that were not previously selected for random 

radiography and requalification of all welders to perform manual tack welding. 

(3) Weld reinforcement height exceeding the maximum allowed by ASME B31.3 for 

circumferential butt welds on pipe. LES NEF corrective actions included re-inspecting all 

welds to ensure compliance with the ASME B31.3 maximum height of weld 

reinforcement and correction of any welds that exceeded the maximum criteria. 

Additionally, NRC inspectors identified examples where LES NEF did not meet requirements 

regarding commercial grade dedication of cascade component welds. Additional information 

regarding the above examples is available in NRC IR 70-3103/2009-002, dated June 26, 2009, 

at ADAMS Accession No. ML091770643 and NRC IR 70-3103/2009-007, dated January 27, 

2010, at ADAMS Accession No. ML100271177. 
IN 2010-08 

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Subcontractor Welding Issues at Flamanville-3 in France

On October 22, 2008, inspectors for the French regulatory authority, Autorité de Sûreté 

Nucléaire, inspected the welding records of Società delle Fucine (SdF), a subcontractor under 

AREVA who in turn is the primary contractor for the construction of Flamanville-3. The 

inspectors reviewed documentation and quality assurance measures applied to the weld test 

samples to support the manufacturing of an intermediate collar ring for a pressurizer. The 

inspectors found that the subcontractor used welding rods that were not qualified and did not 

conform to the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) E208, the International 

Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9001, and subcontractor’s own procedures. The welding 

rods were considered unqualified because they were not tested before performing drop-weight 

testing. 

The inspectors found that the subcontractor SdF was aware that unqualified weld rods were 

used for the test samples and decided to not generate a nonconformance report, which is 

contrary to ASTM E208, ISO 9001, and the subcontractor’s own procedures. The subcontractor 

only generated a nonconformance report following unsuccessful tests of the samples taken from 

the intermediate collar ring of the pressurizer. 

The French regulators determined that without the necessary documentation to demonstrate 

conformance with the French nuclear construction code, it did not have the assurance that the 

subcontractor manufactured the pressurizer components in accordance with specified 

requirements. Also noted was that the primary contractor AREVA had not prevented the 

nonconformances by its subcontractor. The French regulators required AREVA to perform the 

following three actions: 

(1) Propose a way to demonstrate that the three pressurizer intermediate collar rings 

already manufactured conformed completely to the required specifications. This 

approach will not rely on subcontractor’s quality assurance (QA) program. 

(2) Implement a more effective surveillance of AREVA’s supplier, such that these QA issues 

do not repeat themselves. 

(3) Describe measures that AREVA will implement before any additional orders are placed 

with the subcontractor SdF for the manufacture of pressure-boundary components, 

destined for French nuclear power plants.

BACKGROUND 

NUREG-1425, “Welding and Nondestructive Examination Issues at Seabrook Nuclear Station: 

An Independent Review Team Report,” dated July 28, 1990, describes lessons learned 

regarding licensee radiographic and welding programs. (Agencywide Documents Access and 

Management Systems (ADAMS) Accession No. ML090300351). 
IN 2010-08 

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DISCUSSION 

This IN provides examples of welding issues that illustrate the importance of licensee oversight 

of contractors or subcontractors, including direct observation of welding activities while in 

progress when possible, to ensure welders adhere to welding procedure specifications and QA 

requirements. Specifically, 10 CFR Part 50, Appendix B, “Quality Assurance Criteria for Nuclear 

Power Plants and Fuel Reprocessing Plants”: (1) Criterion VII requires that measures be 

established to adequately control contractor materials and services, (2) Criterion IX requires a 

licensee to establish adequate measures to ensure the control of special processes, “including 

welding, heat treating, and nondestructive testing.” and (3) Criterion XVI requires that measures 

be established to “assure that conditions adverse to quality” be “promptly identified and 

corrected.” 

CONTACT

This IN requires no specific action or written response. Please direct any questions about this 

matter to the technical contacts listed below. 

/RA/ /RA/ 

Timothy J. McGinty, Director Daniel H. Dorman, Director 

Division of Policy and Rulemaking Division of Fuel Cycle Safety and Safeguards 

Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards 

/RA/ 

Glenn Tracy, Director 

Division of Construction Inspection 

 and Operational Programs 

Office of New Reactors 

Technical Contacts: Omid Tabatabai Alain Artayet 

 (301) 415-6616 (404) 562-0533 

 Omid.Tabatabai@nrc.gov Alain.Artayet@nrc.gov

 Tomas Herrera 

 (301) 415-7138 

 Tomas.Herrera@nrc.gov

Note: NRC generic communications may be found on the NRC public Web site, 

http://www.nrc.gov, under Electronic Reading Room/Document Collections..
IN 2010-08 

Page 4 of 4 

DISCUSSION 

This IN provides examples of welding issues that illustrate the importance of licensee oversight 

of contractors or subcontractors, including direct observation of welding activities while in 

progress when possible, to ensure welders adhere to welding procedure specifications and QA 

requirements. Specifically, 10 CFR Part 50, Appendix B, “Quality Assurance Criteria for Nuclear 

Power Plants and Fuel Reprocessing Plants”: (1) Criterion VII requires that measures be 

established to adequately control contractor materials and services, (2) Criterion IX requires a 

licensee to establish adequate measures to ensure the control of special processes, “including 

welding, heat treating, and nondestructive testing.” and (3) Criterion XVI requires that measures 

be established to “assure that conditions adverse to quality” be “promptly identified and 

corrected.” 

CONTACT

This IN requires no specific action or written response. Please direct any questions about this 

matter to the technical contacts listed below. 

/RA/ /RA/ 

Timothy J. McGinty, Director Daniel H. Dorman, Director 

Division of Policy and Rulemaking Division of Fuel Cycle Safety and Safeguards 

Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards 

/RA/ 

Glenn Tracy, Director 

Division of Construction Inspection 

 and Operational Programs 

Office of New Reactors 

Technical Contacts: Omid Tabatabai Alain Artayet 

 (301) 415-6616 (404) 562-0533 

 Omid.Tabatabai@nrc.gov Alain.Artayet@nrc.gov

 Tomas Herrera 

 (301) 415-7138 

 Tomas.Herrera@nrc.gov

Note: NRC generic communications may be found on the NRC public Web site, 

http://www.nrc.gov, under Electronic Reading Room/Document Collections 

ADAMS Accession No.: ML091670177 ME0879 

OFFICE CCIB:DCIP:NRO Tech Editor CTSB:DCIP:NRO BC:CTSB:DCIP:NRO BC:FFLD:NMSS 

NAME THerrera KAzariah-Kribbs OTabatabai MKowal BSmith 

DATE 06/05/09 06/12/09 via e-mail 02/26/10 via e-mail 06/18/09 02/26/10 via e-mail 

OFFICE BC:OIP BC:CIB3:DCI:RII BC:CVIB:NRR LA:PGCB:NRR 

NAME CAbrams JMoorman MMitchell CHawes CMH 

DATE 01/12/2010 02/26/10 via email 03/10/10 via e-mail 03/15/10 

OFFICE PM:PGCB:NRR BC:PGCB:NRR D:NMSS:DFCSS D:DCIP:NRO D:DPR:NRR 

NAME DBeaulieu MMurphy DDorman GTracy TMcGinty 

OFFICE 03/10/10 03/15/10 04/07/10 03/25/10 04/09/10 

OFFICIAL RECORD COPY