Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi Engineering Co., Ltd.

Yoshiyuki Kataoka

Michio Murase

Masataka Hidaka

Masanori Naitoh

Isao Sumida

Hiroaki Suzuki

Tsuyoshi Niino

Shigeo Hatamiya

Kotaro Inoue

Toshitsugu Nakao

Tohru Fukui

Osamu Yokomizo

Kenji Tominaga

Yuichiro Yoshimoto

Akihito Orii

Yasuhiro Masuhara

Takaaki Mochida

Tatsuo Hayashi

Hisamichi Inoue

Ryuhei Kawabe

Tadashi Fujii

Shozo Yamanari

Shinichi Kashiwai

Akio Tomiyama

Shoichiro Kinoshita

Kazuhito Koyama

Hidefumi Araki

Koji Hashimoto

Tetsuo Horiuchi

Takashi Ikeda

Masaki Matsumoto

Kanehiro Ochiai

Terufumi Kawasaki

Toshihiko Sugisaki

Shigeto Murata

Satoshi Miura

Matsuo Morikawa

Toru Fukui

Akihiko Minato

Shouichiro Kinoshita

Yasutaka Iwata

Masanori Naioh

A resistance member (e.g., fuel holding portion of the lower tie plate) is provided at the lower end of the fuel assembly. Provision is made of a coolant ascending path in which said water rods have coolant inlet ports that are open in a region lower than the resistance member to upwardly guide the coolant, and a coolant descending path which has a coolant delivery port that is open in a region higher than the resistance member to downwardly guide the coolant. The coolant ascending path and the coolant descending path are communicated with each other at their upper end portions.

Fuel assembly and nuclear reactor

In a plant equipment comprising apparatus of a plurality of systems and control means for switching the systems and changing capacities of the apparatus, an apparatus of each system bas a rated capacity which is 1/N of a capacity of the whole equipment, and the plant equipment is constituted of (N+1) systems. In conditions of normal operation, all the (N+1) systems are operated at capacities less than the rated capacity through the control means. During normal operation, when one system is inspected, or when an abnormality occurs in one system, this system is stopped by the control means. Capacities of apparatus in N of the systems which are operated are increased to the rated 1/N capacity through the control means, and operation is continued with a structure of 1/N capacity.times.N systems. When the maintenance of apparatus in the stopped system is finished, the stopped system is restarted, so as to operate all of the (N+1) systems at capacities less than the rated capacity again.

Fluid plant and its operating method

Pipes are mounted horizontally on an outlet portion of a gas vent pipe in a condenser-type heat removal system, and have-openings which are formed only in a portion below a horizontal plane in which axes of these pipes lie, thereby enlarging a region where uncondensed steam is mixed with water in a suppression pool. With this arrangement, a surface portion of the water of the suppression pool is prevented from becoming hot, and the temperature of this pool water is uniformed. As a result, the temperature of the water surface of the suppression pool is lowered, thereby decreasing the pressure within a primary containment vessel. This enhances the reliability of the primary containment vessel, and reduces a design strength of the primary containment vessel.

Cooling system for primary containment vessel in nuclear power plant and

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 reactor system of a boiling water type atomic power plant including a reactor pressure vessel, a primary containment vessel containing the reactor pressure vessel, a main turbine, a main steam piping extending through the primary containment vessel between the reactor pressure vessel and the main turbine, and inside and outside main steam isolation valves provided on the main steam piping inside and outside the primary containment vessel, respectively. A closure valve is provided on the main steam piping at a position near the primary containment vessel and is adapted to quickly close in less than 3 seconds upon a break accident of the main steam piping. A volume of the reactor pressure vessel allotted for accommodating steam is correspondingly enlarged to allow the closure valve to quickly close upon a break accident of the main steam piping.

Reactor system

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

An emergency core cooling system for spraying cooling water onto a nuclear reactor core of a nuclear reactor includes at least one header disposed in the nuclear reactor and arranged at an upper and outer circumferential position with respect to the reactor core. A plurality of spray nozzles are mounted on the at least one header for spraying cooling water onto the reactor core. The spray nozzles have a center axis and at least one of the plurality of spray nozzles is mounted on the at least one header so that the center axis thereof extends upwardly with respect to a horizontal axis whereas at least one of the remaining plurality of spray nozzles has the center axis thereof extending downwardly with respect to the horizontal axis. Cooling water is conducted to the at least one header for enabling spraying of the water in the emergency situation.

Emergency core cooling system

A natural circulation reactor includes a reactor pressure vessel, a cylindrical shroud disposed within the reactor pressure vessel to surround a reactor core and to extend to a position above the reactor core, and a coolant descending passage defined between the reactor pressure vessel and the shroud for allowing the coolant discharged from the top of the reactor core to be again supplied to the bottom of the reactor core. In such a natural circulation reactor, a liquid level of coolant in the coolant descending passage is adjusted on the basis of a reactor power request signal at a position below a liquid level of coolant in the shroud, and thus reactor power is controlled so that it may reach a predetermined reactor power by adjusting the liquid level of coolant in the coolant descending passage.

Method of and apparatus for controlling power of natural circulation

The emergency core cooling structure according to the present invention is provided with a water storage container which holds therein emergency cooling water to be supplied to a core region in a nuclear reactor in case of an emergency, for example, when the primary cooling water flows out from a reactor vessel, so as to maintain the temperature of the emergency cooling water in the upper portion of the water storage container in a level higher than the level of that of the emergency cooling water in the lower portion thereof, the lower portion of the water storage container, which is filled with the low-temperature cooling water, being communicated at all times with the core of the nuclear reactor by a means which has substantially no movable member. When the primary cooling water flows out, so that the pressure in a reactor vessel decreases, the emergency cooling water in the high-temperature region is boiled to expand to cause the low-temperature emergency cooling water in the lower portion of the water storage container to be raised, the resultant low-temperature emergency cooling water being supplied to the core region.

Nuclear reactor

Growing community of inventors

Ibaraki, Japan

Yoshiyuki Kataoka