Control Average Temperature of Nuclear Power Plant

[schumi2124]

Hello all,

I am a student of Nuclear Engineering and I am very new to this beautiful field of engineering. I have been very curious related to a discussion in my class about "Average temp control" of a NPP... This is in relation to the effects of Tube plugging in the Steam Generators which eventually decreases the overall heat extraction and thus the thermal efficiency. Is there any possible way to modify the Avg temp of the plant to obtain the same thermal efficiency?

I have read many docs related to this and the ReactorPower control and also the RCS water temp control but there are no specific solution to this explained. If you can give any idea in context to this thing it would surely help me to analyse it more properly.

Thanks to all :)

 

[Astronuc]

To increase efficiency one either increases the hot temperature or decreases the cold temperature.

Increasing the hot temperature means raising the core and primary system temperatures, but then one encounters corrosion issues and increased rates of creep in structural metals, and potentially an increased rate of degradation of core structural and heat exchanger materials. Crud and corrosion are critical matters.

On the cold side, one could perhaps add additional cooling, but that could require a significant capital investment, and there are natural limits to temperatures of inland rivers or lakes, or ocean bays.

Some utilities have upgraded low pressure turbines to obtain a few more percent efficiency from the reactor without increasing thermal power.