News
Westinghouse Announces Opening of Second Welding School
PITTSBURGH, August 12, 2009 -- Westinghouse Electric Company announces the opening of a new WEC Welding Institute in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Currently, ten students are enrolled in the no-cost program
that is equipped to train and graduate up to 700 welders per year in both nuclear and non-nuclear operations. The company also has a welding institute in Rock Hill, South Carolina.
The Chattanooga WEC Welding Institute is equipped with 48 weld booths and certifies students after they complete an average of five months of hands-on training. After training, they can take the American Society of
Mechanical Engineers (ASME) welding qualification exam. Once students pass the exam and receive certification, they must work for Westinghouse for 2000 hours. They have the opportunity to work as apprentices at
power plants or at any facility where Westinghouse is performing welding. Several customers work at the institute to pre-qualify the students to work during upcoming nuclear plant outages. To attain journeyman status, students
must complete an additional 2000 hours of welding.
The Chattanooga welding institute is part of the Westinghouse Chattanooga Boiling Water Reactor (BWR) Training Center that will be used to train Westinghouse employees and customers on the safe maintenance and refueling
of boiling water reactors in US nuclear power plants. The BWR training facility is composed of a full-scale BWR cavity with vessel, internals, spent fuel pool, and refueling bridge; two 33-ton cranes, under-vessel mock-up and
65,000 square feet of shop floor. Combined, the welding institute and the BWR training facility will provide approximately 50 jobs for the city of Chattanooga.
The grand opening celebration for the WEC Welding Institute and the Westinghouse Chattanooga Boiling Water Reactor (BWR) Training Center will be held on Thursday, August 20, in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The event will
begin at 9:15 a.m. with a ribbon-cutting ceremony, followed by site tours and welding demonstrations, and will conclude at noon.
Westinghouse Electric Company, a group company of Toshiba Corporation (TOKYO:6502), is the world's pioneering nuclear power company and is a leading supplier of nuclear plant products and technologies to utilities
throughout the world. Westinghouse supplied the world's first commercial PWR in 1957 in Shippingport, Pennsylvania (USA). Today, Westinghouse technology is the basis for more than 40 percent of the world's operating
nuclear plants, including 60 percent of those in the United States. Information about Westinghouse Electric Company and the AP1000 nuclear power plant is available on the company's web site at
www.westinghousenuclear.com.
