The UK Guardianreports February 1, 2023:
"The Royal Navy has ordered an urgent investigation amid claims that workers on [HMS Trident SSBN] fixed broken bolts in the vessel’s reactor chamber using glue.
The faulty repairs on the cooling pipes aboard the HMS Vanguard were found after one of the bolts fell off during an inspection, the Sun reported.
The bolt heads originally came off due to over-tightening. But, rather than replacing the damaged shafts, staff at the defence contractor Babcock implemented a quick fix and glued them back on.
Engineers at the contractor reported it as a procedural glitch after the problem was found, but did not mention the botched nature of the repair.
A [UK RN] source told the newspaper: “It’s a disgrace. You can’t cut corners with nuclear. Standards are standards. Nuclear standards are never compromised.”
The glued bolts held insulation in place on the coolant pipes in the nuclear reactor and were found just as workers were set to fire it up to full power for the first time, the newspaper reported...."