Containment hydrogen and atmosphere activity control to mitigate severe accidents in VVERs and Western PWRs. Design and status of implementation

For accident management nuclear power plants in Europe have been or will be back-fitted with supplementary systems for monitoring the containment hydrogen concentration, for the early removal and reduction of hydrogen and filtered venting systems to retain radioactive aerosols and iodine. The hydrogen monitoring system (HMS) provides the information of local H2 concentration in the containment during DBA and severe accident situations. The new HMS contains of overall H2-sensors and is installed inside the confinement. It provides continuos information about the local and temporal distribution of hydrogen, reported directly to the Emergency Response Team in case of severe accident. The hydrogen Reduction System (HRS) consists of several Passive Autocatalytic Recombiners (PAR) located in several compartments in the containment. The number of PARs to be installed depends on the type of NPP, structure of containment and the investigated accident scenario e.g. DBA conditions - approx. 6 to 20 PARs; severe accident conditions - 20-60 PARs). In case of severe accident it does not need any operator actions. The Filtered Venting System (FVS) is is especially important for WWER-440/230 maintaining sub atmospheric pressure in the confinement. For severe accident the on-site Emergency Response Team has to take the necessary strategic decisions for containment depressurization via the FVS