Le Creusot

Le Creusot (Saône-et-Loire, France) is one of the world’s few forges capable of producing the large parts required to manufacture the nuclear island’s primary components. Since the launch of France’s civil nuclear program, the plant has delivered nearly 3,000 forgings and castings for the reactor coolant system used in nuclear facilities around the world.

The plant carries out forging, heat treatment and machining prior to the assembly of the primary reactor loop components.

The Creusot plant specializes in producing large forgings and castings in carbon steel or stainless steel, which are required to manufacture the primary components of a nuclear power plant, such as:

• Nuclear reactor vessels: vessel head, heavy reflector and core shroud
• Steam generators: shells, tube sheets and elliptical dome
• Pressurizers: heads
• Primary piping that connects the reactor to the steam generators: hot and cold legs
• Reactor coolant pumps: pump casting

The parts are then delivered to the assembly workshops in Saint-Marcel (France).

• A foundry
• A forge with two presses and a 200 metric ton manipulator
• Two machining workshops: 12 vertical lathes and 3 horizontal lathes
• A workshop for cutting samples
• A mechanical testing and chemical analysis laboratory
• 14 furnaces that can accommodate parts up to 600 metric tons for assembly at temperatures up to 1,300°C

The plant also manufactures containers for transporting and storing used nuclear fuel.

Outside the nuclear sector, the plant supplies large parts to industrial companies in the following areas:

• Defense
• Petrochemical
• Energy
• Equipment goods
• Steel