In 2024, the European Atomic Energy Community EURATOM announced a competition for the best innovation in the field of nuclear technologies. The employees of the Prototype and Innovation Center (PaIC) of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of TUKE submitted their project "Robotic system for fragmentation of steam generators" developed for the V1 nuclear power plant under the name "StarGate".

In the competition of the best European research and industrial organizations in the field, our researchers won an incredible but well-deserved 2nd place.

The jury appreciated the extraordinary level of technical parameters of the system, its innovativeness confirmed by two European patents, as well as the verification of the prototypes of the system in practice, as it was successfully fragmented 12 steam generators, each weighing 155 tons. This was a development order for the company VUJE a.s., which was the main coordinator of the entire fragmentation project of the decommissioned large-scale V1 NPP.

Over 20 TUKE experts worked on the development of the fragmentation system under the leadership of Ing. Vargovčík from PaIC SjF. The result of their work was four robotized complexes, designed from conceptual design to production and testing of prototypes at TUKE workplaces, with subsequent installation and revival in Jaslovské Bohunice.

This European award is a confirmation of the extraordinary quality of our researchers and TUKE's ability to comprehensively solve challenging projects up to the level of their industrial use. At the same time, it creates new opportunities for international cooperation and contributes to an even higher gloss of the TUKE brand.