Quality assurance during operation and maintenance of RPV and its associated systems and structurals of Tarapur BWRs - ensuring optimum fuel performance

As part of plant ageing management programme a detailed review was carried out and the action taken has enhanced the safety of the plant meeting the current safety standards. One of the life limiting factors of the power station is integrity and health of RPVs and containment structures which were evaluated after comprehensive review and inspections. TAPS has developed and standardized various operating procedures to achieve optimum fuel performance in spite of various limitations in the reactivity control mechanisms as compared to the present generation Boiling Water Reactors. This is only possible by putting lot of efforts for continual improvement in maintenance practices, quality assurance, reactor water chemistry and operating philosophy for best results. In this paper various maintenance, operation, reactor water chemistry, Quality Assurance methodologies followed at TAPS for achieving optimum fuel performance is discussed in detail