Ontario Nuclear Services
The largest, fully-flexible nuclear-licensed services facility in Canada, offering the maintenance of nuclear tools, decontamination of nuclear equipment, and volume reduction of radioactive wastes.
Our Global Team
International
Andrew Grieve
Vice President, Nuclear Materials Management, InternationalOverview
Components, equipment and machines used at a nuclear site may become activated or contaminated and must be handled at a nuclear licensed site that includes appropriate shielding and containment and is supported by waste disposal routes for radioactive waste.
Purchased in 2017 and then fully refitted, our Ontario Nuclear Services Facility is a premier radioactive services resource. It is configured with state-of-the-art systems and equipment to accommodate a wide-range of radiologically controlled activities and includes a 20,000 ft² radiologically zoned area serviced by three overhead bridge cranes with capacity of up to 5 tons and several portable gantry cranes with capacities up to ten tons. It includes a 4,000 ft² of fully tented contamination control areas with full breathing air capacity for up to ten workers in plastic suits.
The radiologically controlled area has recently been upgraded to add a 620 ft² ampule processing laboratory used for preparing incoming ytterbium 176 isotopes for production of lutetium -177 medical isotopes.
The zoned area is serviced by a fully compliant HEPA filtered air handing system, fire detection/suppression, machine shop and liquid waste collection system.
Why Us?
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Licensed, Quality Assured and Compliant
Not many people have facilities licensed by the regulator to carry out a wide range of work on a broad range of nuclear substances and radiation devices. All our work is carried-out to ISO 90001:2015 as accredited by the Standards council of Canada and operated under CSA N285.0 and CSA N299.1 by the Canadian Standards Association.
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Adaptive, Flexible, and Efficient
Both the physical layout and our operating procedures have been designed to allow us to be flexible and adaptive to your needs.
Technical Abilities
Bruce Power Reactor Inspection and Maintenance System (BRIMS)
All maintenance, modification and testing of the BRIMS system is performed at the Ontario Nuclear Services Facility. This eliminates the demand for valuable plant space between outages. Our leadership and technical team have become highly skilled and very efficient in all aspects of program execution. This has resulted in overall program reliability and cost reduction. The safety culture and work ethic of our team ensures that compliance, innovation and continuous improvement are top-of-mind. This has resulted in an overall improvement in performance predictability and a very low human errors rate.
BRIMS is used to inspect fuel channels which are exposed to extreme heat, pressure, and radiation. To ensure safe operation and regulatory compliance, fuel channels need to be continuously monitored, inspected, and maintained to confirm fitness for duty and over time, replaced well within in their expected operating lifecycle.
Utilizing the innovative capabilities of BRIMS, we can reduce costs and duration for outages by focusing on three key areas:
- Maintaining separation between calandria tube and pressure tube
- Determining uptake of hydrogen in pressure tubes and location
- Ensuring tube material is robust by inspecting for flaws or degradation
The BRIMS system helps utilities understand and maintain fuel channel integrity. The system is an innovative, state-of-the-art system used in a reactor vault, to deploy multiple interchangeable remote controlled tool sets like a Swiss army pocketknife, to perform mission critical inspection, monitoring of key equipment and maintenance activities. This complex delivery systems deploys multiple tools including:
- Our Circumferential Wet Scrape Tool (CWEST*) to obtain fuel channel metal samples to determine hydrogen levels
- Brims Advanced Non-Destructive Examination (BRANDE) for non-destructive fuel channel examination with ultra-sonic inspections
- Modal Detection and Repositioning (MODAR) for detection and movement of channel spacers
- Spacer Location and Repositioning Tool (SLAR) for detection and reposition of loose-fitting garter springs
- BRIMS can also be used for channel defueling
- Removal of pressure tubes for testing (Thermal Barrier Coating TBC)
Additional BRIMS benefits include:
- Reduced delivery time on-channel and overall outage reduction
- 80% reduction in critical path set-up and tear-down
- 50% reduction in fuel channel inspection time
- Reduced radiation exposure to workers
All maintenance, modification and testing of the BRIMS system is performed at our fully licensed 40,000 ft² facility just 3 km from the Bruce Power site. This eliminates the demand for valuable plant space between outages. Our leadership and technical team have become highly skilled and very efficient in all aspects of program execution. This has resulted in overall program reliability and cost reduction. The safety culture and work ethic of our team ensures that compliance, innovation and continuous improvement are top-of-mind. This has resulted in an overall improvement in performance predictability and a very low human errors rate.
*CWEST not available for sale outside of Canada until after November 30, 2027.
Our Proven Experience
Quality Assurance & Technical Standards
- CSA N285 Series
- General Requirements for Pressure-retaining Systems, Components, and Supports in CANDU Nuclear Power Plants
- CSA N299.1
- Quality Assurance Program Requirements for the Supply of Items and Services for nuclear power plants, Category 1
- ISO 9001:2015 (2015)
- Quality management systems
Key Clients
Let's Work Together
Whether it’s about our world-renowned team, our laboratories, or our lifecycle management solutions, we’re happy to answer any questions you might have.