OREANDA-NEWS. November 10, 2008. The 1st corporate conference “Titanium in Nuclear Power Engineering” took place at Kolontayevo health center Oct 29–30 2008. The conference was organized by Atomenergoprom OJSC, TVEL Corporation and Elemash jointly with Central Research Institute of Structural Materials “Prometey” (CRISM Prometey).

Representatives of Atomenergoprom OJSC, TVEL OJSC, Mashinostroitelny Zavod OJSC (Elemash), Chepetsk Mechanical Plant, CRISM Prometey, Atomredmetzolo OJSC, Energoatom Concern OJSC, Atomstroyexport CJSC, OKBM, Atomenergoproekt, St.Petersburg Atomenergoproekt, Mayak PA, RFNC-VNIIEF, Kurchatov Institute, VNIIHT and other well-known Russian research centers and companies – over 90 people — took part in the event. 26 reports were made during the meeting.

The conferees exchanged views concerning the prospects for developing titanium production for the needs of the nuclear industry, discussed problems related to the use of titanium on home and foreign markets, familiarized themselves with the latest achievements in the field of production of titanium and its alloys.

Vice President of TVEL Vladimir Rozhdestvensky pointed out the importance of the conference in the light of the nuclear sector’s growing interest in titanium.

Head of the Marketing Sector of CRISM Prometey Irina Schastlivaya pointed out that TVEL’s titanium products might gain a worthy place on the titanium market.

Presently, TVEL is actively developing the production of pipes from titanium alloys. Rozhdestvensky said that TVEL was just at the beginning of a long road. “Today, we are just beginning to create titanium production. Our goal is to fully use our industrial capacities,” Rozhdestvensky said.

There already are specific results in this field. In 2006 Elemash launched a titanium pipe production. As of today, it has produced over 17 tons of pipes for Kaluga Turbine Plant. Presently, the plant, jointly with OKBM, is developing a technology of titanium pipe production for heat exchange systems.

After the discussion, the conferees visited Elemash and familiarized themselves with the local pipe production.

Chepetsk Mechanical Plant (CMP) has also started to produce titanium pipes. In 2008 the plant manufactured a lot of pipes for the steam generating system of Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant-2 and made a contract with Atomstroyexport CJSC for delivery of pipes for Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant (Iran). In June 2008 CMP was granted a certificate of the 3rd Innovative Forum for effective organization of titanium production.

Today, TVEL is oriented mostly towards corporate customers but is also considering the possibility of supplying its titanium products to other industries.

“Elemash and CMP have enough capacities for fabricating metallurgical products and for them it is much easier to adopt titanium production than for other Russia companies,” Director General of Titanium Inter-State Association Andrey Alexandrov said.

Secretary of All-Russian Institute of Light Alloys Igor Polkin said: “I think that TVEL has enough capacities for effectively organizing titanium production. It has highly-qualified personnel, who are used to working under high quality requirements. I think that the titanium production of TVEL will be supplied mostly to nuclear companies. But in the future the company may enter wider markets and supply its titanium products to other industries and companies in Russia and abroad.”