Experiences in design up-gradation of mechanical seal cooling scheme of Dhruva PHT pumps

Full text: Dhruva is a natural uranium fuelled high flux research reactor. Heavy water is used as coolant, moderator and reflector. Heat from the heavy water coolant is removed in heat exchangers by demineralised water. The heavy water coolant is re-circulated between the reactor core and the heat exchangers in three separate loops by three main coolant pumps (MCPs). The MCPs are high capacity centrifugal pumps and are rated for continuous service. The mechanical seal of the pump prevents leakage of the process fluid, which is heavy water, through the pump shaft. Continuous operation of the pump results in the heating up of the seal and necessitates sustained cooling. An integral cooling provision is made by tapping a 15 NB line from the discharge volute of the pump and feeding the process fluid itself as coolant to the seal. A non-indicating type flow-sensing device monitors flow through this line. Limiting values of flow are set and annunciated by a pair of magnetic reed type relays. This cooling line was a built in feature of the pumps as supplied by the manufacturer. This arrangement had the following inherent limitations : 1. There was no on line indication of the coolant flow. 2. The reed type magnetic relays initiated pump trips by spurious actuation, resulting in the interruption of reactor operation. Servicing a faulty flow switch involved lengthy procedures and necessitated draining, filling and venting of the pump. This entailed extended plant outages. Close proximity of these flow switches to a highly radioactive piping element imposed severe restrictions on the planned maintenance activity on them. Efforts were made to provide a suitable alternate cooling and flow measurement scheme to overcome the above-mentioned limitations. After evaluating the relative merits and demerits of several schemes, a turbine type flow sensor, on a modified cooling line was selected as the most suitable alternative. The alternate seal-cooling scheme was implemented for all the three MCPs in stages and their performance is excellent