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Two steps forward for U.K. advanced nuclear
This week, two significant announcements have emerged from the United Kingdom’s advanced reactor sector.
On June 14, Rolls-Royce, the United Kingdom National Nuclear Laboratory, and the Japan Atomic Energy Agency announced that they had signed two trilateral memorandums of cooperation to collaborate on “advanced modular reactor (AMR) technology, specifically high-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGR), and the coated particle fuel these reactors will use.”
Separately, on June 16, Bellevue, Wash.–based TerraPower announced that its Natrium reactor design has been formally submitted for U.K. regulatory review. The company also announced the formation of a new subsidiary, TerraPower UK Ltd.
Edouard Hourcade (CEA), Takatsugu Mihara (JAEA), , Alexandre Dauphin, Jean-François Dirat (Framatome), Akihiro Ide (MFBR)
Proceedings | 2018 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants (ICAPP 2018) | Charlotte, NC, April 8-11, 2018 | Pages 556-561
ASTRID (Advanced Sodium Technological Reactor for Industrial Demonstration) has the objective to integrate innovative options with the objective to prepare the 4th generation reactors.
In this framework a French-Japanese agreement was signed in 2014 between CEA, framatome (ex AREVA NP), JAEA, MHI/MFBR to jointly perform components design of ASTRID such as Decay Heat Removal Systems (DHRS).
In this respect an ambitious close collaboration is set in the framework of the practical elimination objective of Decay Heat Removal (DHR) function loss which is one of the main ASTRID safety objectives.
To reach this target, design is driven by deterministic safety criteria, probabilistic safety indicators and proper technical and economic analysis.
Safety demonstration aims at identifying common cause failures and imposes to search for proper diversification of decay heat removal systems. In ASTRID, DHRS main diversification is based on final heat sinks types and intermediate coolant fluids. It is also based on spatial segregation of systems which leads to thermal loading diversification during normal operation as well as severe accident exposure. Implication of two different designers bodies framatome and a Japanese team (JAEA, Mitsubishi FBR Systems (MFBR) and MHI) also participate to diversification.
This paper is giving an update concerning ASTRID DHR strategy with description of reference architecture evolution and project objectives. In particular, new developments were made for DHR during normal shutdown and role of Ex-Vessel system. A special focus is made on design process of automatic shutter to hydraulically connect Hot Plenum and cold plenum to enhance primary vessel natural convection.