NRC Reports Davis Besse Safety Pump Design Flaw
June 29, 2003 | Dexigner Team
Federal inspectors have identified a second design flaw in a vital pair of emergency pumps at the Davis-Besse nuclear plant that must be fixed before the rust-damaged reactor can be tested and restarted.
The plant's two high-pressure injection pumps - critical to keeping the reactor's radioactive core from overheating and melting after a coolant-loss accident - might themselves overheat and fail in certain conditions.
Plant owner FirstEnergy Corp. already is spending between $3 million and $4 million to correct a separate design problem that could have allowed debris from a burst pipe to damage the pumps' bearings, causing the equipment to jam and fail.
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