Compact sodium cooled nuclear power plant with fast core (KNK II- Karlsruhe), Safety Report

After the operation of the KNK plant with a thermal core (KNK I), the installation of a fast core (KNK II) had been realized. The planning of the core and the necessary reconstruction work was done by INTERATOM. Owner and customer was the Nuclear Research Center Karlsruhe (KfK), while the operating company was the Kernkraftwerk-Betriebsgesellschaft mbH (KBG) Karlsruhe. The main goals of the KNK II project and its special experimental test program were to gather experience for the construction, the licensing and operation of future larger plants, to develop and to test fuel and absorber assemblies and to further develop the sodium technology and the associated components. The present safety report consists of three parts. Part 1 contains the description of the nuclear plant. Hereby, the reactor and its components, the handling facilities, the instrumentation with the plant protection, the design of the plant including the reactor core and the nominal operation processes are described. Part 2 contains the safety related investigation and measures. This concerns the reactivity accidents, local cooling perturbations, radiological consequences with the surveillance measures and the justification of the choice of structural materials. Part three finally is the appendix with the figures, showing the different buildings, the reactor and its components, the heat transfer systems and the different auxiliary facilities