50MWe Dodewaard nuclear power plant

The availability of the station during the year was 61.9%, northwithstanding the repair of three safe-ends; apart from this refueling outage the availability was higher than 99.5%. On April 15 the station was shut down for the fifth refueling Again crack indications were found in three safe-ends on the reactor vessel, which have been replaced. At the end of this repair weld spatters set several lead blankets on fire, causing severe chlorine contamination inside the drywell. The necessary intensive cleaning programme extended the outage, already extended by the repair of the safe-ends, by another month. The cleaning also took 200 manrem extra radiation dose. When removing the core from the reactor vessel-needed for the repair of the safe-ends-faulty connections between the control rods and the followers were found. It was decided to remove all the followers. This resulted in higher local flux peaks; after start-up the station therefore ran on lower power until burnup decreased these flux peaks to acceptable levels. The first overhaul of the turbine took place after 36000 running hours. Apart from some expected erosion at the end of the low pressure turbine, the turbine as a whole was in excellent condition