Stern Laboratories Inc. is an employee owned, private Canadian company located in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada in a former Westinghouse Canada manufacturing plant where we lease approximately 25,000 square feet from CBS Canada Co., the successor company to Westinghouse. Laboratory research and development work was started at this location in 1962 by our founder, Frank Stern, when a fossil fired boiler, which was installed for testing marine steam turbines for the Canadian Navy, was converted to providing the steam/water flow to test CANDU fuel at operating conditions. The business grew steadily as the Westinghouse Systems Test Laboratory during the sixties and seventies as CANDU reactors came into service and the requirements for experiments to support reactor licensing and verification of computer safety codes grew. 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 laboratory contracts with a lease from Westinghouse, and has continued to grow and prosper. As a private company with no affiliation to Westinghouse or other vendors, Stern Laboratories is able to serve many customers in the nuclear industry wordwide. 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 11 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. We also hold a Certificate of Authorization from the Technical Safety Standards Authority (TSSA) to manufacture and construct Pressure Vessels and Pressure Piping, primarily for use in the laboratory.
Approximately one third of our business involves building high power, custom designed fuel simulators (heater rods) for use in our laboratory or our customers’ facilities. Our unique designs and manufacturing processes have resulted in versatile fuel simulations that have a solid reputation for quality and reliability and we continue to innovate to meet more stringent requirements.
We employ a highly skilled, experienced workforce of over 30 permanent employees with 10 graduate engineers and 20 technologists/technicians. A dedicated team has been built over time and the average service experience is approximately 24 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.
