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Breaking ground on a new approach to construction
The drive to Kairos Power’s reactor demonstration site in Oak Ridge, Tenn., is not only scenic—it’s historic. Nearly 85 years ago, roughly 30,000 construction workers transformed orchards and farmland into a key Manhattan Project site. Depending on your route, you may pass by one of the three gatehouses that were once military checkpoints controlling access to Atomic Energy Commission production facilities.
Mei-Ya Wang, Tsung-Kuang Yeh
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 180 | Number 3 | July 2015 | Pages 335-340
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE14-97
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
For further improvements on thermal efficiency and operation safety, reactor internal pumps, instead of conventional recirculation systems, are adopted in an advanced boiling water reactor (ABWR). With the novel design of internal circulation, the traveling path and pattern of the recirculated liquid coolant in an ABWR is actually different from that of the coolant in a conventional boiling water reactor. To ensure operation safety, optimization of the coolant chemistry in the primary coolant circuit (PCC) of a nuclear reactor is essential no matter what type or generation the reactor belongs to. For a better understanding of the water chemistry in an ABWR, such as the one being constructed in the northern part of Taiwan, and for safer operation of this ABWR, in this study we conducted a proactive, thorough water chemistry analysis prior to the completion of this reactor. A well-developed computer code was used to investigate the effectiveness of hydrogen water chemistry (HWC) on the redox species concentrations and electrochemical corrosion potential (ECP) behavior of components in the PCC of the Lungmen ABWR in Taiwan. Our analyses indicated that the effective oxidant concentrations at the top of the downcomer location would be expected to be >100 ppb at 0.5 ppm [H2]FW at the original rated power. While an effective ECP reduction at 0.4 ppm [H2]FW was observed at the downcomer outlet, a 2.0 ppm [H2]FW was not enough to reduce the ECP below the Ecrit at the upper plenum outlet. In summary, the effectiveness of HWC in the PCC of an ABWR is expected to vary from location to location and eventually from plant to plant due to different degrees of radiolysis and physical dimensions in different ABWRs.