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Swr 1000: the New Boiling Water Reactor Power Plant Concept

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Swr 1000: the New Boiling Water Reactor Power Plant Concept IAEA-SM-353/27 XA0053557 SWR 1000: THE NEW BOILING WATER REACTOR POWER PLANT CONCEPT W. BRETTSCHUH Siemens AG, Unternehmensbereich KWU, Offenbach, Germany Abstract Siemens' Power Generation Group (KWU) is currently developing - on behalf of and in close co-operation with the German nuclear utilities and with support from various European partners - the boiling water reactor SWR 1000. This advanced design concept marks a new era in the successful tradition of boiling water reactor technology in Germany and is aimed, with an electric output of 1000 MW, at assuring competitive power gener- ating costs compared to large-capacity nuclear power plants as well as coal-fired stations, while at the same time meeting the highest of safety standards, including control of a core melt accident. This objective is met by re- placing active safety systems with passive safety equipment of diverse design for accident detection and control and by simplifying systems needed for normal plant operation on the basis of past operating experience. A short construction period, flexible fuel cycle lengths of between 12 and 24 months and a high fuel discharge burnup all contribute towards meeting this goal. The design concept fulfils international nuclear regulatory requirements and will reach commercial maturity by the year 2000. 1. INTRODUCTION Almost right from the start, the development of boiling water reactors (BWRs) in Germany has been characterized by major innovations. In 1968, for example, the world's first fine motion control rod drive was installed at Lingen. The Brunsbuttel reactor was then the first in the world to be equipped with internal reactor water recirculation pumps, and the twin-unit plant Gundremmingen B and C, which started commercial operation 14 years ago, incorporated all main features of a so-called advanced BWR; namely: fine motion control rod drives, internal recirculation pumps, a three-train full-range residual heat removal (RHR) system and a cylindrical pre-stressed concrete containment with steel liner. These innovations set examples for BWR development efforts world wide. Due to the good availability ratings achieved by BWR plants, further development of the BWR product line was resumed in Germany as well in 1992. Since then, Siemens - under an order from and in close collaboration with the German nuclear utilities and, since 1995, with support from European partners (TVO of Finland, KEMA of the Netherlands, PSI of Switzerland and ENEL of Italy) - has been designing an advanced BWR plant with an electric output of around 1000 MW. What was the motivation behind further development of the BWR product line? There were two principal reasons for this: On the one hand, the level of plant safety should be raised even further; i.e. the probability of occurrence of a core melt accident should again be consid- erably reduced. Also, in accordance with requirements stipulated in the German Atomic Energy Act, a postulated core melt accident should be controlled in such a way that there would be no need for emergency response actions in the vicinity of the plant. On the other hand, nuclear power generating costs should be improved, compared to those of other energy sources, as they had recently been suf- fering a marked disadvantage due to the drop in fossil fuel prices and because of increasingly strin- gent safety requirements and higher maintenance expenses. Hence, there were two objectives which appear, at first sight, to be quite paradoxical; namely: • To increase plant safety, and • To reduce plant construction and operating costs. 244 These objectives can only be met through appropriate simplification - both in plant safety sys- tems and in the systems needed for normal plant operation. I shall now be describing the main design features of the SWR 1000 that have enabled these objectives to be met. 2. SAFETY CONCEPT WITH PASSIVE SAFETY EQUIPMENT The safety systems installed until now in operating nuclear power plants have consisted of sys- tems that are controlled by a complex reactor protection system and that need an uninterruptible sup- ply of electric power. It is not possible to increase plant safety any further by designing these safety systems with even more multiple redundancy than they have had in the past - in fact, such an approach would be economic nonsense. The solution instead is to introduce passive safety systems which can serve as substitutes for some of the existing active systems and which do not need any instrumentation and control (I&C) equipment or an external power supply to operate, but which function instead by means of basic laws of nature such as gravity, heat transfer and natural convection (Figure 1). A definition of passive systems is given in IAEA-TECDOC-626. How this approach has been applied to the design concept of the SWR 1000 is shown in Figure 2. Here you can see that the SWR 1000 uses a variety of different kinds of passive components. These include, for example, the emergency condensers provided for passive heat removal from the reactor pressure vessel (RPV), and the containment cooling condensers for passive heat removal from the containment - both types of components being designed to function without any activation signals and without any moving parts (Category B). The next category (Category C) contains the passive flooding lines with their check valves, the safety-relief valves with spring loaded pilot valves and feedwater isolation valves. The components covered by Category D are allowed to be activated by external means, although in the design concept for the SWR 1000 this can comprise either activation by safety I&C equipment using T j •" < 1 Ms- MKT3, . 1 r : •!. ••• FIG. 1 Containment 245 Category A B c D • RPV • Emergency • Checkvalve • Scram system \^ Examples • Piping condenser •SRV • Vessels • Containment • Spring-loaded pilot cooling valve co nde nse r • Passive pressure pulse transmitter Structure I pressure retaining) X X X X Moving working fluid X X X Moving mechanical parts X X Stored energy • Battery X X • Com pressed flu id • Elevated fluid External signal X FIG. 2 Categories of Passive Features solenoid valves, or activation by the passive pressure pulse transmitter system using diaphragm valves, the latter system being completely independent of plant I&C equipment. Category D contains the scram system, the safety-relief valves and the main steam isolation valves with solenoid pilot valves. Figures 3 and 4 show which systems are used to perform the required safety functions. By combining well-known active safety equipment with passive safety systems of diverse de- sign, the effects of Common Cause Failures are significantly reduced and the frequency of core dam- age states caused by plant-internal events is about two orders of magnitude lower than that of contem- porary plants. In fact, the integral frequency of core damage states calculated by proven methods for initiating events occurring during power operation is only 5.2 x 10"8 per year. Pas Passive Systems (Category A, B, C without any external signal or power) 1 Containment cooling condenser 2 Emergency condenser 3 Passive flooding line 4 Passive or. pulse transmitter (PPPT} 5 Safctv relief valves SRV) 5.2 Diaphragm pilot valves for SRV 5-3 Spnng-Ioaded pilot valves for SRV 6 Fccdivaicrlint* isolation valves 7 Main steam line isolation valve (MSIV) 7.2 Diaphragm pilot valve for MSIV 8 Scram system 8.2 Diaphragm pilot valves for scram system 11 Hydraulic control rod drive Passive Systems with External Signal (Category D) 5.1 Solenoid pilot valves for SRV 7.1 Solenoid pilot valves for MSIV S. I Solenoid pilot valves for scran? system Active Systems 9 Fine motion control rod drives 10 Liquid poison svstcm 12 RHR and LPA system Containment 13 Wetwcli (4 Vent pipes 12 Flooding pool FIG. 3 Active & Passive Systems 246 Safety Passive systems Active functions systems Cciasafioiiionaa;. IMA TECOOC628 Reactivity Scram svstam 137 Fine motion Control 4tante(Hf» control rod drives MMons - Oiaphragmpitotvalw.PPPT Liquid poison -Soteroid pilotvalws system Containment 2 MSlVpersteam line 1 Gate valve isolation MS. ! if necessary) feiiis&sm: - 0iaphragmpilotvatve,PPPT iftslw Cl - Solenoid pilot valves ffljssh? Da ihiSrfwi i-Spring loaded Reactor • pilot vahe pressure iifcJitoQ control |-Soterw id pilot 8 Safety • valve MSIM a relief i-OiapSragmpifot 4 Reactor valves | valw/PPPT Emergency depressurization j- Sols no id pilot condenser : VallES litiAt Or RHRfrom HP 4 Emergency condensers(R»S*I a RPV LP LP 4 Flooding lines utuiwa Co re flooding 2RHRandLPCI RHRfrom 4 Containment condensers systems containment PPPT- Passive pressure pulse transmitter FIG. 4 Passive and Active Systems for Accident Control From a deterministic analysis point of view, taking single failures into account, this design con- cept also allows all postulated design basis accidents to be controlled with the passive systems alone. This has been analytically verified using the validated computer code RELAP 5, (Figure 5). The analyses showed that in the event of any accidents, even those involving loss of coolant, core cooling can always be maintained and at no time will there be any increase in the fuel rod cladding tempera- ture. By way of example, Figure 6 shows the results of an analysis based on a feedwater line break controlled exclusively using passive systems. Analysed Accidents Effective Systems Results Transients: • passive scram activation by » no increase in fuel temperature passive pressure pulse • Loss of • RPV-pressure remains transmitters
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