Introduction

Principles of a pressurized light water reactor

Changes and Improvements

Conclusions

Areva 3rd generation

Comparison to previous PWR most recently built in France

STEINERT Olof

TALENTI Luca

VIT Giorgio

Course: Cogeneration and Energy Production

12/05/2015

STEINERT Olof, TALENTI Luca, VIT Giorgio

Areva 3rd generation

Appendix

Introduction

Principles of a pressurized light water reactor

Changes and Improvements

Table of Contents

Introduction

Principles of a pressurized light water reactor

Changes and Improvements

Conclusions

STEINERT Olof, TALENTI Luca, VIT Giorgio

Areva 3rd generation

Conclusions

Appendix

Introduction

Principles of a pressurized light water reactor

Changes and Improvements

Conclusions

Appendix

Nuclear reactor principles

Figure: Schematic of a two-loop nuclear

reactor

Rankine Cycle = Rankine =

STEINERT Olof, TALENTI Luca, VIT Giorgio

Areva 3rd generation

Heatadded Heatrejected
Heatadded

Carnot = 1

Tcold
Thot

55%

Introduction

Principles of a pressurized light water reactor

Changes and Improvements

Conclusions

Appendix

From generation to generation

Why changing?
Efficiency
Safety
Costs

Figure: Nuclear plant generations

STEINERT Olof, TALENTI Luca, VIT Giorgio

Areva 3rd generation

Introduction

Principles of a pressurized light water reactor

Changes and Improvements

Conclusions

Appendix

Whats up in France?
29 years: average age of
nuclear reactors
in France
High standardization: 1 type
of 2nd generation
reactors
in 3 different
power capacity.

Figure: Nuclear plants in France

STEINERT Olof, TALENTI Luca, VIT Giorgio
Areva 3rd generation

75% of France
electricity from
nuclear power

Introduction

Principles of a pressurized light water reactor

Changes and Improvements

Conclusions

Appendix

The Pressurized Water Reactor

Definition
The PWR is a second generation light water reactor: the primary coolant and the
secondary one are light water pumped at high pressure in order to increase the
boiling point

Figure: PWR
Figure: PWR schema
STEINERT Olof, TALENTI Luca, VIT Giorgio
Areva 3rd generation

Introduction

Principles of a pressurized light water reactor

Changes and Improvements

Conclusions

Appendix

PWR: The first cooling system

Primary cooling system :
1 Closed circle of pressurized water.
2 Its function is to extract the heat produced in the reactor.
o
3 Enter the vessel at 296 C, heated by contact with fuel assemblies and exit at
o
327 C.
4 To assure that it rests in a liquid state its pressurized maintains the level at
155 bars.

Figure: PWR schema - Focus on the first loop

STEINERT Olof, TALENTI Luca, VIT Giorgio
Areva 3rd generation

Figure: 4 primary loops

Introduction

Principles of a pressurized light water reactor

Changes and Improvements

Conclusions

Appendix

PWR: The second cooling system and the third one

Water in the secondary cooling system (closed circle) heated by water in primary
system, turns into steam and then travels into the turbine set.
The turbines are connected to a generator that converts the mechanical
energy into electrical energy
After passed turbo turbine set, the water is condensed into liquid water and
starts a new cycle.
Secondary system is cooled by a third one (open), with
water taken from sea or a river.

Figure: Generator and

Turbine set.

STEINERT Olof, TALENTI Luca, VIT Giorgio

Areva 3rd generation

Introduction

Principles of a pressurized light water reactor

Changes and Improvements

Conclusions

Evolutionary power reactor

Definition
The EPR is a third generation pressurized light water reactor consisting of an
improvement of the PWR and firstly designed in Europe by Areva.

STEINERT Olof, TALENTI Luca, VIT Giorgio

Areva 3rd generation

Appendix

Introduction

Principles of a pressurized light water reactor

Security aspects
Resistance to major hazards:
Thicker walls to defend against
airplane crashes
Equipment at lower level to
improve earthquake resistance
Backed up computerized control
room
Robustness:
4 redundant safeguard systems
Decreased core damage
frequency by a factor of 10

STEINERT Olof, TALENTI Luca, VIT Giorgio

Areva 3rd generation

Changes and Improvements

Conclusions

Appendix

Introduction

Principles of a pressurized light water reactor

Changes and Improvements

Conclusions

Appendix

Environment

Prevention of environmental damage:

Core catcher
Improved fuel management
reduces generation of long-lived
actinides by 10 % per MWh
Control of hydrogen
concentration prevents
explosions

STEINERT Olof, TALENTI Luca, VIT Giorgio

Areva 3rd generation

Figure: Schematic description of the

core catcher

Introduction

Principles of a pressurized light water reactor

Changes and Improvements

Conclusions

Energy and Economical aspects

Increased power output to 1650
MWe
Life time: from 40 years to 60
years (N.B. increased building
costs)
Improved availability: 92 %
compared to average in France
84 %
Increased efficency and reduced
operating costs:
Uranium consumption
Figure: Schematic drawing of an EPR
reduced by 15 %
power plant.
Reduced maintenance costs

STEINERT Olof, TALENTI Luca, VIT Giorgio

Areva 3rd generation

Appendix

Introduction

Principles of a pressurized light water reactor

Changes and Improvements

Conclusions

Major improvements: from the PWR to the EPR

STEINERT Olof, TALENTI Luca, VIT Giorgio

Areva 3rd generation

Appendix

Introduction

Principles of a pressurized light water reactor

An Outlook

STEINERT Olof, TALENTI Luca, VIT Giorgio

Areva 3rd generation

Changes and Improvements

Conclusions

Appendix

Introduction

Principles of a pressurized light water reactor

Changes and Improvements

Conclusions

List of Figures

Treatment of perfusion parametric picture, original figure, inspired from

B.Romain thesis

STEINERT Olof, TALENTI Luca, VIT Giorgio

Areva 3rd generation

Appendix

Introduction

Principles of a pressurized light water reactor

Bibliography

skdjf

STEINERT Olof, TALENTI Luca, VIT Giorgio

Areva 3rd generation

Changes and Improvements

Conclusions

Appendix