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01 POWER ISLAND / Overview of Light Water.docx
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the Light Water Reactor Plant Improvement and Standardization Project promoted by METI, various measures for improvement in the following areas have been studied and implemented.

  • Optimization of plant equipment arrangement

  • Introduction of equipment to shorten durations of periodical inspections

  • Employment of remotely operated, automatic machines and equipment to reduce dosages of workers

  1. Optimization of plant equipment arrangement

Plant equipment arrangement designs were improved to facilitate maintenance work by allocating spaces for the overhaul of components and the lay-down of disassembled parts, and by providing necessary utilities such as electric power supplies, ventilation, water supplies to maintenance areas. Improved designs have been applied to the improved/standardized plants starting from Sendai Unit No.l. The improvement in plant equipment arrangement designs together with the improvement in equipment design for the rationalization of periodical inspections have significantly upgraded the workability of plant maintenance activities.

  1. Reduction of durations for periodical inspections

In the 1970s and 80s, when NPPs were at the beginning of their service lives, durations for just basic inspections in the plant periodical inspections took almost three months. Various measures for improving plant system designs and improved inspecting equipment have been developed and applied to rationalize the inspecting activities and to shorten the times.

One of the major activities in the critical path of plant periodical inspections is the opening of the reactor vessel head and its restoration. To reduce duration of these activities, a single-piece structure design of the reactor vessel head was implemented to the improved/standardized plants. In this design, the ring duct for the cooling of the control rod drive mechanisms was integrated with the vessel head structure, and both power cables for the control rod drive mechanisms and lead wires for the control rod

position detecting system were mounted together on a cable bridge to save time for the disconnection and re-connection of the cables. A quick coupling type stud-tensioner design was developed to facilitate bolting work of the reactor vessel head flanges.

As discussed before, the nozzle plug design was applied to rationalize the ECT inspections of SG tubes which allowed inspection work to continue, without interruption by fuel refueling operations of the reactor core. In certain plants, SGs were replaced with new ones having heat transfer tubes made of the more reliable nickel based Alloy 690(Inconel®690). The SGs with Alloy 690 tubes are approved to be inspected every two periodical inspection periods, while the old design SGs with Alloy 600 tubes are required to be inspected every periodical inspection period. With such large- scale modifications of plant designs, not only the reliability of plant components and systems was improved, but the amount of inspection activities was also reduced.

Inspecting practices were also rationalized to reduce the durations for plant periodical inspections. One example is seen in the containment leakage rate testing, in which a half pressure testing, or local leakage rate tests conducted at intervals can now replace the overall full pressure testing.

  1. Reduction of radiation dose

In earlier plant designs, much manual work contributed to increased cumulative radiation dose to plant personnel, and reduction of the dose became a serious issue for the plant management. Several improved designs of automatic equipment such as self-propelled ECT flaw testing robots, reactor vessel stud rotators, stud-tensioner positioning devices, and automatic piping ultrasonic testing units have been developed and applied to plant inspections to mitigate the issue. Radiation levels in the plant maintenance/inspection areas have been significantly reduced by several efforts as well. The automation of inspection equipment and the lowering of field radiation levels largely contributed to the reduction in the amount of radiation dose to plant workers. Significantly low radiation levels are now maintained.

NSRA, Japan

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