Doosan Enerbility Becomes “IR52 Jang Young-shil Award” Winner

Doosan Enerbility announced on November 21st that it had been awarded the IR52 Jang Young-shil Award for its homegrown Control Element Drive Mechanism (CEDM) nozzle. The IR52 Jang Young-shil Award was established to discover and reward research organizations that achieved remarkable innovations in technology. It aims to encourage companies and motivate engineers in their technology development efforts.  The Jang Young-shil Award ceremony is hosted by the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) and co-sponsored by the Korea Industrial Technology Association (KOITA). The CEDM nozzle, a key component of the nuclear reactor that is attached to the reactor head, helps to ensure that the control rods move safely and accurately. The control rods are moved in and out of the reactor core to control the reactor power and are guided so that they do not stray from their position. In the past, the Korean nuclear sector had to rely solely on imported CEDM nozzles that were supplied by a select few global manufacturers. Doosan Enerbility succeeded in the local manufacturing of the CEDM nozzle within 45 months’ time through the collaborative efforts of Doosan’s researchers and related business departments, which were led by Youngdeak Kim, Senior Engineer of the Materials Technology Development Team.  Doosan’s CEDM nozzle boasts of offering the same quality as that of global competitors at prices that are 20% lower and delivery times that are only half as long. Owing to these competitive advantages, Doosan was able to win approximately KRW 61 billion worth of projects to date in this area, including a parts replacement project in 2022 and a new build project in 2023. “We find it truly meaningful to be awarded the Jang Young-shil Award in recognition of our accomplishment in locally manufacturing the CEDM nozzle, a component we had to import from overseas in the past,” said Yongjin Song, Chief Strategy Officer of Doosan Enerbility. “By also sharing this core technology with the small-to-medium sized enterprises in the domestic market, we aim to strengthen the industrial ecosystem and widen the deployment of the technology to other areas, such as the SMR sector.”