Babcock & Wilcox’s (B&W) Nuclear Operations Group (NOG) has been awarded $535.1m in contracts to support the US Navy’s nuclear reactor programmes.
B&W will be responsible for the production of naval nuclear reactor components for navy submarines and aircraft carriers.
Approximately $424.6m has been issued as options under previous contract in 2010 and 2013, with the remaining $110.5m issued as part of new agreements awarded late last year.
The funding will be used for the production of nuclear propulsion components for Virginia-class submarines and Ford-class aircraft carriers, as well as the disassembly and recovery of highly enriched uranium materials.
Work under the contracts started last month at B&W NOG’s facilities and will continue for the next several years.
Built by General Dynamics Electric Boat and Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII), the nuclear-powered advanced stealth multi-mission Virginia-class submarines have a beam of 34ft and a maximum submerged cruise speed of 25k.
They include anechoic coatings, isolated deck structures and a new design of propulsion that enables a low acoustic signature, as well as AN/WLY-1 acoustic countermeasures systems, mast-mounted AN/BLQ-10 electronic support measures and Sperry Marine AN/BPS-16(V) 4 navigation radar.
