C-E balances the benefits against the costs

The Combustion Engineering philosophy on design standardisation for nuclear power plants, and developments resulting in the 3800 MWt, System 80 standard design are outlined. Specific changes made to previous designs are indicated. For practical reasons something less than complete standardisation had to be accepted. The success of the effort, shown by the measure of acceptance by the four utilities for which System 80 is being designed and built, is categorised and explained for various design features and components. Licensing procedures are discussed. A proper return on the high initial cost of introducing standard systems will only be achieved when changes in the licensing process reduce the total project span time. (U.K.)