Design of shutdown system no.2 liquid poison injection system for 500 MWe PHWR

Defence in depth and two group system concepts form the basic design philosophy for the shutdown systems. There are two independent, diverse and fast acting shutdown systems provided for the 500 MWe PHWR. The design is based on fail-safe principle, sufficient component redundancy and on-line testing. Liquid poison injection system, as shutdown system 2, is newly developed for the 500 MWe PHWRs. The system operates by rapidly injecting gadolinium nitrate solution into bulk moderator using stored helium pressure thereby inserting negative reactivity. A high pressure helium supply tank which provides the energy for system actuation, is connected, through an array of fast acting valves in series-parallel arrangement, to the individual poison tanks storing gadolinium nitrate solution. The valves, belonging to three different channels of reactor Protection System 2, are the only active components in the system. The valves are fail safe and are periodically tested on-line without actually firing the system. The system comprising of in-core assemblies and the external process system has been engineered. Experimental work is being carried out by BARC for design validation and data generation. This paper describes the conceptual development, design basis, design parameters and detailed engineering of the system. (author)