China Nuclear News Weekly Roundup - 03/11 -03/16

Reactor Pressure Vessel Installed at Tianwan Unit 6

On March 14th, Tianwan Unit 6’s reactor pressure vessel (RPV) was successfully installed. This milestone achieved paves the way for subsequent work of the installation stage, for example, primary piping welding and installation of reactor internals. The RPV has a net weight of 257 tons and a height of 10 meters. The installation process was witnessed by representatives from Jiangsu Nuclear Power Company, NPIC, CNPE, and CNNC Consulting Corporation. Northern China Regional Office of the Nuclear and Radiation Safety Center inspected the whole process on site. At this time, Tianwan Phase III Project is progressing well. The primary piping wielding has been completed for Unit 5 and it’s projected to begin commercial operation by the end of 2021.

High-Pressure Steam Turbine for World’s First Hualong One Reactor Installed

After working for 12 hours through the night, the 130-ton upper half of the high-pressure cylinder was finally buckled into place at 7:10am on March 11 at Fuqing Unit 5, the site of the world’s first Hualong One reactor.  This milestone paves the way for subsequent work such as installation of the steam turbine barring and hot testing.

The conventional island of the Fuqing 5 reactor includes an impulse condenser-style half-speed turbine with a single shaft, three cylinders (two low pressure, one medium-high pressure, and quadruple steam exhausts. Over one hundred subcomponents were reinstalled, tested, and calibrated during the 7-day installation, and all required parameters were met.

Ling’ao Unit 4 Completes Outage and Reconnects to the Grid

At 9:41pm on March, Ling’ao NPP Unit 4 completed its 7th outage and was reconnected to the grid. The outage work was undertaken by the Northeast No.1 Electric Power Construction, a subsidiary of the China Energy Engineering Group (CEEC).

This outage was different from previous outages. The SAP system has been overhauled to use the AS FOUND functional module. Automated management of the work was implemented, while working through the holiday of the Chinese New Year. The staff of Northeast No.1 Electric Power Construction completed the work with zero incidents and zero violations, completing the safety management objectives and making this a very good outage, with all indicators controlled.