Engineered safety in development of liquid poison injection system (shut down system-2) for 500 MWe PHWR

Full text: The provision of shut down systems (SDS) is a mandatory requirement for safety of any nuclear reactor. The SDS shall be capable of making and holding the core adequately subcritical in the event of any anticipated operational occurrence and postulated accident conditions. The shut down function will perform as intended when its design and components are thoroughly evaluated for their reliability and effectiveness. A full scale mock up for one injection unit was designed and developed at Hall No.7, BARC. Experimental studies were carried out to qualify the design and evolve process parameters such as gas tank pressure, poison discharge rate and poison injection time. In liquid poison injection system i.e. shutdown system -2, there is no physical barrier, between the two liquids i.e. the poison and the moderator. A liquid in liquid interface, called poison moderator interface (PMI) separates these fluids. Extensive lab scale studies have been carried out on PMI movement study i.e. the interface movement due to molecular diffusion and due to process disturbances under simulated reactor condition. On the basis of lab scale results, a full-scale PMI setup has been designed and developed to generate plant data. From reactor safety consideration, the floating ball in poison tank is designed in such a way that it prevents the over pressurisation of calandria. For this purpose a non-intrusive ultrasonic ball detection system (U-BDS) has been developed. This paper covers the PMI system for 500 MWe PHWR with relevant safety aspects and describes in detail, the experimental results of PMI study. The engineered safety in design, methodology and qualification of U-BDS and its role intended in performance of SDS-2 have been also discussed in the paper