Stern Laboratories Inc.
is an employee-owned private Canadian company located in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada in the former Westinghouse Canada manufacturing plant. We lease approximately 25,000 square feet from CBS Canada Co., the successor company to Westinghouse. The laboratory research and development work was started at this location in 1962 by our founder, Frank Stern, when a fossil-fired boiler, which was originally installed for testing marine steam turbines for the Canadian Navy, was converted to provide the steam/water flow for tests on CANDU fuel at operating conditions. The Westinghouse Systems Test Laboratory grew steadily during the sixties and seventies as CANDU reactors came into service and the requirements grew for experiments to support reactor licensing and verification of computer safety codes. Customers supplied the equipment to upgrade the hydraulic facilities and install new state of the art power supplies for testing.
In January 1988, Westinghouse Canada sold their Atomic Power Division to another company who in turn sold the assets of the Systems Test Laboratory to Frank Stern and the laboratory employees. Stern Laboratories was formed in April 1988, taking over the existing contracts, and with a lease of the premises from Westinghouse has continued to grow and prosper. As a private company with no affiliation to Westinghouse or any other vendor, Stern Laboratories is able to serve many customers in the nuclear industry worldwide. Company and customer investment in upgraded facilities and hardware continued. The laboratory has modern computer data acquisition systems, a 16 MW DC power supply with 13 individually controlled zones, and is one of the highest power and most versatile heat transfer facilities in the world. We are licensed by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) to possess and store customer owned, sealed natural Uranium fuel bundles for use in customer contracts and we hold a Certificate of Authorization from the Technical Safety Standards Authority (TSSA) to manufacture Pressure Vessels and Power Piping, primarily for use in the laboratory.
We employ a highly skilled, experienced workforce of over 30 permanent employees who are mostly graduate engineers and technologists/technicians. A dedicated team has been built over time and the average service experience is over 20 years. We have a hard earned reputation for being responsive and providing excellent value. Our customers, many of whom provide multi-year contracts and much repeat business, include crown corporations, government laboratories, reactor owners’ groups, nuclear utilities, nuclear regulators, reactor fuel vendors, private test laboratories and universities.
