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New material promises 120-year reactor lives
A new 'ultra pure' nickel alloy has been used to create a reactor vessel, which Rosatom says could potentially last 120 years.
In a nuclear power plant the reactor pressure vessel contains the reactor core itself, demanding the highest resilience to temperature, pressure and radiation, while the component sits low in the reinforced centre of the concrete reactor building and is one of the only major components that cannot be replaced.
Russian state nuclear company Rosatom says it has developed a new 'extra strong' reactor pressure vessel for its forthcoming VVER-TOI pressurized water reactors. It could give that design a lifespan of 120 years, compared to the 100 years offered by Rosatom's current VVER-1200 as built at Novovoronezh and Leningrad Phase II.
Around the world a range of advanced reactor designs offer 60 year lives as standard, with this commonly expected to be extendable to 80 or 100 years. This represents a substantial improvement on the benchmark of 50-60 years for current reactors, which were usually licensed for an arbitrary 30 or 40 years when they were constructed in the second wave of nuclear build.
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-New-material-promises-120-year-reactor-lives-2107151.html
In a nuclear power plant the reactor pressure vessel contains the reactor core itself, demanding the highest resilience to temperature, pressure and radiation, while the component sits low in the reinforced centre of the concrete reactor building and is one of the only major components that cannot be replaced.
Russian state nuclear company Rosatom says it has developed a new 'extra strong' reactor pressure vessel for its forthcoming VVER-TOI pressurized water reactors. It could give that design a lifespan of 120 years, compared to the 100 years offered by Rosatom's current VVER-1200 as built at Novovoronezh and Leningrad Phase II.
Around the world a range of advanced reactor designs offer 60 year lives as standard, with this commonly expected to be extendable to 80 or 100 years. This represents a substantial improvement on the benchmark of 50-60 years for current reactors, which were usually licensed for an arbitrary 30 or 40 years when they were constructed in the second wave of nuclear build.
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-New-material-promises-120-year-reactor-lives-2107151.html
In related news -
Research Finds Few Obstacles to Long-Term Operations for Nuclear Plants
An old piece of cable from a nuclear reactor might not seem like a unique or interesting thing—but for Jeremy Busby, it’s pure gold.
“That cable was 46 years old when we pulled it out of service,” said Busby, a senior research staffer at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) near Knoxville in east Tennessee.
“Our studies show that that particular type of cable, in that specific environment, probably has a useful life on the order of hundreds of years. And that was through a very systematic analysis. Now, we’d like to reproduce that on other cables from nuclear power plants.”
That bit of cabling is helping Busby and his team to understand what happens to components, systems and structures at nuclear power plants over long periods of time. U.S. nuclear energy facilities are initially licensed to operate for 40 years. However, more than 75 reactors have had their licenses renewed for an additional 20 years. Some licensees are expected to seek second license renewals in the coming years, for an additional 20-year period of operations.
http://www.nei.org/News-Media/News/News-Archives/Research-Finds-Few-Obstacles-to-Long-Term-Operatio
An old piece of cable from a nuclear reactor might not seem like a unique or interesting thing—but for Jeremy Busby, it’s pure gold.
“That cable was 46 years old when we pulled it out of service,” said Busby, a senior research staffer at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) near Knoxville in east Tennessee.
“Our studies show that that particular type of cable, in that specific environment, probably has a useful life on the order of hundreds of years. And that was through a very systematic analysis. Now, we’d like to reproduce that on other cables from nuclear power plants.”
That bit of cabling is helping Busby and his team to understand what happens to components, systems and structures at nuclear power plants over long periods of time. U.S. nuclear energy facilities are initially licensed to operate for 40 years. However, more than 75 reactors have had their licenses renewed for an additional 20 years. Some licensees are expected to seek second license renewals in the coming years, for an additional 20-year period of operations.
http://www.nei.org/News-Media/News/News-Archives/Research-Finds-Few-Obstacles-to-Long-Term-Operatio
1 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
No welds, shaped out of a single 450-tonne ingot.
