The installation of eight heat exchangers of the Passive Heat Removal System (PHRS) has been completed in unit 1 of the first nuclear power plant (NPP) in Bangladesh located at Rooppur.
According to a statement earlier this month by the Russian state atomic energy corporation Rosatom, each heat exchanger, a metal structure weighing over 32 tonnes, has a length of 8,530 centimetres (cm) and a width of 5,904 cm.
The PHRS is a passive safety system that ensures the long-term removal of heat from the reactor core into the atmosphere in the absence of all sources of power supply.
“When the system is operational, atmospheric air enters the PHRS heat exchanger which cools it down at one side, while the steam from the steam generator condenses inside the heat exchanging tubes”, Rooppur NPP Construction Project Director, Alexey Deriy, said in a statement.
This work followed the installation last month of the ventilation pipe at unit 1.
Rosatom, the equipment supplier and technical consultant for the project, is building two VVER-1200 units of 1,200 MW capacity each at Rooppur, located on the eastern bank of the river Padma, about 160 km from the Bangladesh capital Dhaka.
Earlier this month, the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission inspected nuclear fuel at Russia’s Novosibirsk Chemical Concentrates Plant of Rosatom’s fuel arm TVEL, for the initial fuel loading at Rooppur 1.
The fuel acceptance inspection test was passed successfully, Rosatom’s engineering division ASE said in a statement.
Both the latest generation III+ 1,200 MW power units at Rooppur will be equipped with active as well as passive safety systems, including molten core catchers.
