Eight water jet pumps for the under-construction units 5 and 6 of the Kudankulam nuclear power plant (KNPP) located in India’s Tamil Nadu state have been shipped from Russia, according to a statement by the Russian state atomic energy corporation Rosatom.
A Rosatom release in the last week of July said the items are intended to be used for feeding chemical solution to the emergency cooling system of the reactor’s primary circuit and spent fuel storage pool cooling.
“Manufacture and commissioning of the water jet pumps at Kudankulam NPP is one of the crucial stages for the provision of reliability and safety of NPP operations. In other words, the pumps are a part of the protection system of the primary system,” said Alexey Korenets, Projects Executive for Cniitmash, which is a subsidiary of Atomenergomash, the machine-building division of Rosatom.
Rosatom is the equipment supplier and technical consultant for the KNPP, India’s largest nuclear plant operated by the state-run Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL). Its units 1 and 2 of 1,000 MW capacity each, started commercial operations in 2014 and 2016, respectively. The construction is underway of four more units at Kudankulam – 3, 4, 5 and 6 – also of 1,000 MW capacity each.
Rosatom said last month that the “core catcher”, which is an essential part of the nuclear plant’s safety system ensuring prevention of radiation leakage into the environment in case a severe accident causes destruction of the reactor vessel, had been installed in the KNPP fifth unit.
According to Rosatom, the core catcher invented by the company can contain liquid and solid fragments of the core and structural materials of the reactor for an indefinitely long time, keeping a nuclear power plant safe for the environment and people.
The reactor pressure vessel, the pressuriser, and four steam generators for the fifth unit of the KNPP have already been shipped from Russia earlier this year.
A trial assembly of the internals of the reactor pressure vessel was undertaken in January this year at the company’s Volgodonsk plant in Russia. The trial assembly, in which the products completely replicate their design position, significantly reduces the time taken to install the reactor at the nuclear plant construction site and simplifies the process of its installation too.
