- #1
Hiddencamper
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Hi everyone.
On March 11th 2016, there were reports of an alleged coolant leak at the kakrapar atomic power station. The reactor is an Indian PHWR.
Articles at the time suggested the first trip on the reactor was high containment pressure, which signaled to me some sort of loss of coolant accident (LOCA). Articles in the last few days confirm that there was a definite steam condition in the reactor compartment, with cameras in the area having nothing but a wall of steam.
While the unit is now in "cold shutdown", defined as average reactor coolant system temperature less than boiling point, it appears the plant's emergency core cooling system (ECCS) was required to ensure adequate core cooling was maintained. Additionally there are reports that containment venting occurred, although radiation levels in a 5 km radius were not seen to increase to an extent indicating fuel failure.
This could have potential impacts to all PHWR/CANDU type plants, as the cause for the rapid failure of a coolant channel is unknown at this time. In the mid 80s one of the CANDU units at Pickering had a similar failure, and the coolant channel tube materials and manufacturing/installation methods were changed to prevent this from recurrence.
The unit at kakrapar atomic power station had its coolant channels refurbished in 2011, so this failure was after 5 years, and was allegedly a rapid failure.
The purpose of this post is to spur some discussion on the event, link articles as we find them, and hopefully have an interesting thread like we had with the Fukushima accident.
On March 11th 2016, there were reports of an alleged coolant leak at the kakrapar atomic power station. The reactor is an Indian PHWR.
Articles at the time suggested the first trip on the reactor was high containment pressure, which signaled to me some sort of loss of coolant accident (LOCA). Articles in the last few days confirm that there was a definite steam condition in the reactor compartment, with cameras in the area having nothing but a wall of steam.
While the unit is now in "cold shutdown", defined as average reactor coolant system temperature less than boiling point, it appears the plant's emergency core cooling system (ECCS) was required to ensure adequate core cooling was maintained. Additionally there are reports that containment venting occurred, although radiation levels in a 5 km radius were not seen to increase to an extent indicating fuel failure.
This could have potential impacts to all PHWR/CANDU type plants, as the cause for the rapid failure of a coolant channel is unknown at this time. In the mid 80s one of the CANDU units at Pickering had a similar failure, and the coolant channel tube materials and manufacturing/installation methods were changed to prevent this from recurrence.
The unit at kakrapar atomic power station had its coolant channels refurbished in 2011, so this failure was after 5 years, and was allegedly a rapid failure.
The purpose of this post is to spur some discussion on the event, link articles as we find them, and hopefully have an interesting thread like we had with the Fukushima accident.