Hitachi, Ltd.

Masataka Hidaka

Yoshiyuki Kataoka

Masanori Naitoh

Isao Sumida

Shigeo Hatamiya

Hiroaki Suzuki

Michio Murase

Tsuyoshi Niino

Toshitsugu Nakao

Tohru Fukui

Kenji Tominaga

Ryuhei Kawabe

Tadashi Fujii

Terufumi Kawasaki

Junichi Yamashita

Naoyuki Yamada

Tetsuo Horiuchi

Masaya Ohtsuka

Kanehiro Ochiai

Shozo Yamanari

Shinichi Kashiwai

Shigeto Murata

Shoichiro Kinoshita

Toru Fukui

Akihiko Minato

Shouichiro Kinoshita

Yoshinori Saito

In an indirect cycle nuclear reactor, a size of the reactor containment vessel is decreased by removing decay heat inside the reactor pressure vessel without using any active component to improve the economic feasibility. A main steam pipe communicating with a heat exchanger of the indirect cycle nuclear reactor is branched in a position upstream of a main steam isolation valve to connect the branched pipe to a heat exchanger in a pressure suppression pool through an isolation valve. A feed water pipe is also branched in a position upstream of an isolation valve to connect the branched pipe to the heat exchanger through the isolation valve. Decay heat is dissipated from the heat exchanger into the pressure suppression pool, and condensed water condensed by heat dissipation is returned to the heat exchanger to cool the inside of the pressure vessel. Heat in the pressure suppression pool is transferred from a condensing type heat exchanger to a heat dissipater outside a containment vessel to be dissipated to the outside of the containment vessel.

Nuclear reactor

Improved operability and economy of a nuclear reactor can be obtained by attaining a mixing of the flows of coolant in the lower plenum of the fuel assemblies of the nuclear reactor, a high flow stability of the two-phase flow in the fuel assemblies and a small pressure loss in the core. To achieve this, there is provided a coolant guide tube 60 that communicates with the inside of the fuel support piece 12 inserted in the control rod guide tube and the passage 16, wherein there is formed a coolant guide passage 61 along which coolant descends in the area outside of the coolant guide tube in the fuel assemblies from opening 79. The coolant guide passage along which the coolant descends from the opening is formed in an area outside of the coolant guide tube in the fuel support piece.

A reactor containment facility having a reactor pressure vessel containing a core; a dry well in which the reactor pressure vessel is arranged; a suppression chamber holding suppression-pool water and forming above the suppression-pool water a wet well; and a plurality of vent pipes allowing the dry well to communicate with the suppression-pool water; a steel wall which is in contact with the suppression-pool water of the suppression chamber and which surrounds at least the pool water so as to form a containment vessel which houses the dry well and the suppression chamber; and an outer peripheral pool containing cooling water in contact with the outer peripheral surface of the steel wall. The facility further includes: a dividing structure for dividing the wet well of the suppression chamber into a first space which is in contact with the water surface of the suppression-pool water and a second space which is not in contact therewith; a first passage which allows the first space to communicate with the second space and which has an area smaller than that of the dividing device; and a cooling device for keeping the second space at a temperature lower than that of the first space.

Reactor containment facilities

There is disclosed a nuclear reactor installation. An accumulator-type emergency core cooling system, a gravity-driven core cooling system and an equalizing system for submerging a reactor core are provided within a primary containment vessel containing a reactor pressure vessel in which the reactor core is disposed. These cooling systems are automatically operated sequentially in accordance with the pressure in the reactor pressure vessel without the need for any particular powered source. The primary containment vessel is made of steel, and the interior of this containment vessel is divided into a space containing the reactor pressure vessel and a space containing an operation floor in such a manner that the two spaces are isolated from each other. An opening device is provided between the two spaces so as to communicate the two spaces with each other in the event of an accident, the upper portion of the primary containment vessel being air-cooled while the lower portion of this containment vessel being water-cooled.

Nuclear reactor installation

In a boiling water nuclear reactor, a reactor primary cooling water line is filled with water at the start-up time, and the inside of a pressure vessel is pressurized by a pressurized tank and at the same time control rods are withdrawn to thereby heat cooling water in a state of single-phase flow to high temperature. Succeedingly, the pressurization is released and the pressure of the pressure vessel is gradually approximated to the saturation pressure corresponding to the cooling water temperature to thereby make the cooling water transit into a state of two-phase flow, and thereafter the cooling water is heated by nuclear reaction in the state of two-phase flow to thereby obtain predetermined reactor running temperature and pressure. This prevents the flow fluctuation and the reduction of stability of core due to occurrence of unstable phenomena of low temperature two-phase flow at the start-up time of the reactor to thereby make it possible to perform stable starting-up of the reactor and to shorten the start-up time of the reactor to thereby realize improvement in economy as well as reliability.

Boiling water nuclear reactor and start-up process thereof

A pressure control chamber of a reactor containment vessel for receiving the atmosphere of the reactor containment vessel containing leakage steam developing in the event of an accident includes a pressure control pool, and a wet well disposed above the pressure control pool. The wet well is divided into an inner peripheral portion and an outer peripheral portion. The inner and outer peripheral portions are communicated with each other via the pressure control pool. An outlet port for flowing the atmosphere of the reactor containment vessel containing the leakage steam is provided at the inner peripheral side of the pressure control pool. When the atmosphere of the reactor containment vessel containing the leakage steam is introduced into the pressure control pool in the event of the accident, this atmosphere is condensed by the water in the pressure control pool, and the gas of this atmosphere not condensed is accumulated in the inner peripheral portion of the wet well. As a result, the pressure within the inner peripheral portion is increased to increase the water level of the pressure control pool at the outer peripheral portion, so that the area of contact of a reactor containment vessel wall with the pressure control pool water is increased, thereby enhancing a heat radiation performance of the reactor containment vessel.

Reactor containment vessel

A reactor containment vessel comprises typically a reactor pressure vessel housed in a dry well of the reactor containment vessel, a vent passage through which steam in the dry well is introduced into coolant accommodated in a pressure suppression chamber of the reactor containment vessel, a closed space formed at a position lower than the level of the normal liquid surface of the coolant, a first passage having an inlet opened into the pressure suppression chamber at a level higher than that of the normal liquid surface of the coolant and an outlet opened into the closed space, and a second passage communicating between the closed space and the dry well through a counter flow preventing arrangement for checking the flow directed toward the closed space, and therefore, noncondensable gas and liquid accumulated in the pressure suppression chamber are discharged into the dry well the pressure in which is higher than that in the pressure suppression chamber by making use of a difference in water head increased due to increase of the liquid while allowing fluid to be condensed to newly flow into the pressure suppression chamber from the dry well so as to be condensed, over a long cooling period after the occurrence of an accident of piping fracture in the reactor containment vessel. Owing to condensation, the pressure in the reactor containment vessel can be reduced, and moreover, fluid can make a natural circulation in a closed circuit passing through the dry well, the pressure suppression chamber and the closed space in order without flowing outside the circuit.

A primary containment vessel, comprising a reactor pressure vessel in which a core is accommodated, a dry-well volume covering the upper portion of the reactor pressure vessel, a suppression chamber provided with a suppression pool surrounding an intermediate portion of the reactor pressure vessel, has a plurality of vent tubes establishing a connection between the dry-well volume and the suppression pool and an annular baffle plate disposed in the suppression pool along the side wall of the suppression chamber, having its top end positioned at a height between a free surface of the suppression pool and an outlet of the vent tube opened in the suppression pool and its lower end positioned at a height between the outlet and the bottom of the suppression pool. If a loss of coolant accident occurs, hot steam discharged into the dry-well volume is discharged into the suppression pool through the vent tube so as to heat water on the inside of the baffle plate. The water head difference generated by the water temperature difference between the inside and the outside portions of the baffle plate causes a vertical convection passing through the baffle plate to be created. Therefore, the heat accumulating characteristics of pool water and the heat radiation performance of the containment vessel are improved, allowing the size of the containment vessel to be reduced.

Primary containment vessel with outer pool

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Hitachi, Japan

Masataka Hidaka