RITM-200N | SMRs & ADVANCED REACTORS
Above: The advantages of marine nuclear solutions lend themselves to SMR deployment scenarios
applications and has been developed from RITM type plants. It is designed with improved safety, flexibility and a low carbon footprint. It is also comparable with other small capacity reactors on economic parameters. Compared with large PWRs, the RITM-200 has a number of advantages such as higher inherent safety, lower frequency of large radioactivity releases, longer post-accident autonomy without operator intervention, smaller environmental impact, lower site restrictions, shorter construction period and smaller financing requirements, as well as lower financial risk. The main features of this reactor are: use of reference technologies of marine reactors, compact primary system, modular design and fabrication, redundant and diverse safety features – both active and passive – which ensures reactor core safety and extremely low risk of a large radioactivity release. The parameters of the primary circuit use the proven
technical solutions implemented in the nuclear ship building industry (NSSS equipment and its components including the gas pressuriser system) to ensure a high level of reliability of the reactor plant. The choice of the integral layout of the main equipment, the composition and structure of the safety systems and normal operating systems important to safety, make it possible to significantly increase the safety level of the reactor plant. The design solutions of the integrated reactor have also undergone computational, analytical and experimental design verification while individual structural components of the reactor, such as the cover and pipework, are of proven design. The core of the RITM-200N reactor plant consists of cassettes that are analogues of the cassettes currently used in the cores of the RITM-200 and KLT-40S icebreakers.
The main equipment of the reactor (reactor coolant
pump, steam generator, control system drives) including the reactor and process solutions adopted in the RITM- 200N have been tested during many years of operation and ensure the required reliability and safety characteristics. The cooling system through the process condenser and other systems important to safety of the reactor plant are mainly of a traditional design and have been tested in real operating conditions on nuclear icebreakers.
A self-sustaining ammonia water-chemistry regime and a cleaning system with an ion exchange filter which have been used in ice-breakers, have been adopted for the primary circuit. The water-chemistry regime of the secondary circuit and the intermediate cooling circuit has been developed based on many years of operational experience within the transport shipping industry. The technological operations for maintenance of
the reactor plant are traditional in many respects. The operations of core refueling and replacement of steam generator cassettes (due to the integrated design of the reactor) are similar to those implemented in RITM-200 icebreakers. The reactor building, reactor annex buildings, special
buildings, including the fresh fuel building, are made of monolithic non-pre-stressed reinforced concrete, as well as steel structures in the turbine building that meet the requirements of reliability, durability, strength, stability and remain geometrically unchanged.
Main reactor characteristics The integral configuration of the RITM-200 reactor, where steam generators are placed inside the reactor pressure vessel, allows the reactor systems and containment to be more compact as compared to the KLT-40S. The RITM-200 reactor design also allowed the electrical output to be increased by 40%, the dimensions to be reduced by 45% and the weight by 35% in comparison with the KLT-40S design.
This integral design of the RITM-200N plant envisages
core and steam generators (SG) inside a single vessel. As shown in Figure 2, the reactor coolant pumps (RCP) are welded directly on to the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) which excludes any piping in the reactor coolant system (RCS). This approach significantly improves safety by excluding any loss of coolant accident (LOCA) scenarios within the RCS. The primary circuit includes the integral reactor, pressuriser system, and purification and cooling system.
The RITM-200N reactor coolant system is based on forced
circulation of the primary circuit separated into four loops with reactor coolant pumps (RCPs) installed in the cold
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