1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a reactor coolant recirculation equipment for a boiling water type light water reactor (boiling-light-water reactor) particularly capable of reducing number of coolant recirculation pump accommodated in a nuclear reactor (called internal pump hereinlater) improving safety measure against an accident of power-supply section and simplifying a structure of a cooling water system of the internal pump.
2. Related Art
In general, a reactor coolant recirculation equipment or system of the boiling water reactor is provided for a reactor pressure vessel, and by forcibly recirculating the coolant to a core in a core shroud, heat or heated steam in the core is removed. In addition, nuclear reactivity of the core is adjusted by changing a flow rate of the reactor coolant, thus controlling a plant power output.
There are known, as reactor coolant recirculation equipment, a so-called external recirculation system in which a coolant circulation loop is arranged outside the reactor pressure vessel or a so-called internal pump system in which internal pumps are arranged in the reactor pressure vessel.
In the above connection,
As shown in
As shown in
In order to keep constant a temperature of the motor of the internal pump 3, a motor cooling unit 26 is provided for each internal pump 3, the motor cooling unit 26 including a motor cooling water pipe 10 and an internal pump heat exchanger 11, and the motor cooling water is circulated by utilizing a driving power of the internal pump 3. The motor cooling unit 26 is also provided with an auxiliary cooling system 12 for cooling auxiliary equipments or members arranged in a nuclear power plant so that a natural circulation of the cooling water is caused by such auxiliary cooling system 12 even if the internal pump 3 is stopped in its operation to thereby keep the temperature of the motor section below a predetermined temperature.
Such technology is, for example, disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open (KOKAI) Publication No. HEI 10-10273 and Japanese Patent Laid-open (KOKAI) Publication No. 2003-156585.
With reference to
As shown in
In the case where the maintenance or inspection working is done around the internal pumps 3, a worker or operator approaches or accesses a walking corridor 14 by using a ladder 16 or stairs 17 from a platform 23 formed in the lower drywell 6. That is, it is necessary for this purpose to form an opening or openings 15 to the corridor 14 and prepare the ladder 16 or stairs 17.
In addition, around the corridor 14, it is necessary to provide a withdrawal space 13 for the installation, disassembling and/or inspection of the internal pumps 3.
In the case of the maintenance and inspection of the internal pumps 3, it is necessary, as mentioned above, to perform the withdrawing, installing or like working of the internal pump 3 in the lower drywell 6. However, the openings 15 are formed on the access passage to the space in which the necessary workings to the internal pumps 3 are performed and the internal pump maintenance space 13 is also formed near the openings 15. Accordingly, a moving working of a worker inside the lower drywell 6 may interfere with the internal pump maintenance and/or inspection working.
Such inconvenience may be improved if installation number of the internal pumps 3 could be reduced, and the maintenance or inspection workability inside the lower drywell 6 can be hence improved. However, as mentioned before, in a usual conventional design, since the ten internal pumps 3 are arranged, the reduction of the installation number of the internal pumps resulted in considerable and complicated change of layout or design of the reactor pressure vessel or equipments or devices disposed therein.
In addition, in order to improve the internal pump maintenance and/or inspection working in the lower drywell 6, it may be considered to commonly utilize, for a plurality of internal pumps 3, a heat exchanger 11 connected to the respective internal pumps 3 through a motor cooling system 26. However, in the case that cooling water pipes or like of a plurality of internal pumps 3 are combined, it becomes difficult to maintain a stable cooling performance or ability properly responding to the operating condition of the respective internal pumps 3. For example, in a case where the cooling water pipes of the plural internal pumps 3 are combined under a condition that one side internal pump is tripped or the internal pumps are operated at different revolution numbers, there may cause a case that, because of the difference of powers of the respective pumps, the cooling water does not circulate on the one side internal pump and it is hence difficult to maintain the temperature around the motor section below a predetermined allowable temperature.
Furthermore, in a case where two adjacent internal pumps are cooled by one heat exchanger in the arrangement mentioned above, there is a fear that if the power-supply system in one section becomes faulty or disordered, seven or more internal pumps 3 may become inoperative. This will result in that the coolant flow rate in the core is largely reduced more than that caused in a conventional nuclear power plant.
The present invention was conceived in consideration of the circumstances in the prior art mentioned above and an object of the present invention is to provide a reactor coolant recirculation equipment, in which a cooling water system of internal pumps can be simplified to thereby improve workability of workers or operators in a lower drywell in a reactor pressure vessel of a nuclear power plant, and, moreover, it makes possible to reduce the number of the internal pumps to be arranged without reducing the core coolant flow rate even in a case of fault of a power-supply section in comparison with a conventional arrangement of a nuclear power plant.
This and other objects can be achieved according to the present invention by providing, in one aspect, a nuclear reactor coolant recirculation equipment including: a plurality of internal pumps which are installed around a bottom portion of a reactor pressure vessel of a boiling-light-water reactor and are provided with motors, respectively; power-supply sections for supplying current to the internal pumps so as to drive same; an internal pump cooling system, for cooling the internal pumps, including cooling water pipes and heat exchangers connected to the cooling water pipes; and an auxiliary cooling water pump for supplying the cooling water to the heat exchangers, respectively, wherein ten positions are set as internal pump installation positions at substantially same interval in a circumferential direction around a central portion of the bottom portion of the reactor pressure vessel, and nine or less and four or more numbers of the internal pumps are installed at the ten internal pump installation positions.
In preferred embodiments of the above aspect, the following additional characteristic features may be desired.
Ten nozzles, each having a shape suitable for the installation of the internal pump, are formed to the ten internal pump installation positions, respectively, and nozzles at which the internal pumps are not installed are closed, for example, by closing plates by means of welding.
A passage for maintenance and inspection of the internal pump is formed in a protruded shape at a portion below the internal pump installation position other than the installation positions at which the internal pumps are installed, and a ladder or stairs as an access member to a walking corridor utilized for a worker to carry out maintenance and inspection of the internal pump may be arranged near the protruded passage.
In another aspect of the present invention, there is also provided a nuclear reactor coolant recirculation equipment comprising:
In preferred embodiments of this aspect, it may be desired that two internal pumps are connected to one heat exchanger through the cooling water pipes, respectively, and the inner portion of the heat exchanger is separated into two sections by means of partition plate.
A power-supply section for supplying power to the internal pumps and a power-supply section for the auxiliary cooling water pump for supplying the cooling water to the heat exchangers for the respective internal pumps are common.
According to the present invention of the characters mentioned above, the ten positions are set as internal pump installation positions at substantially same interval in a circumferential direction around a central portion of the bottom portion of the reactor pressure vessel, and nine or less and four or more numbers of the internal pumps are installed at the ten internal pump installation positions. Thus, the reduction of the numbers of the internal pumps to be installed can be achieved, thus being advantageous.
Furthermore, a plurality of internal pumps are connected to one heat exchanger, which has the inner portion divided into a plurality of sections corresponding to the numbers of the internal pumps connected thereto as the cooling water passing sections. According to such structure, the cooling water supply system for the internal pumps can be simplified and workability and accessibility of the worker in the lower drywell can be improved. Still furthermore, even at a time of power-supply fault, the core coolant flow amount can be still maintained properly in comparison with the conventional structure of the nuclear reactor plant.
The nature and further characteristic features of the present invention will be made more clear from the following descriptions made with reference to the accompanying drawings.
In the accompanying drawings:
Preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described hereunder with reference to the accompanying drawings.
A first embodiment of a nuclear reactor coolant recirculation equipment or system of the present invention will be first described with reference to
With reference to
In such reactor coolant recirculation equipment, ten installation positions of the internal pumps 3 are set at substantially equal interval in the circumferential direction around the center of the bottom portion of the reactor pressure vessel, and a plurality of, such as four or more and nine or less, internal pumps 3 are arranged at these installation positions. For example, eight internal pumps 3 are arranged as shown in
That is, in this embodiment, two internal pumps 3 are eliminated in comparison with the arrangement of the conventional reactor coolant recirculation equipment.
In such arrangement as shown in
Function of each of the internal pumps 3 will be explained with reference to
For example, the increased revolution “n” of the internal pump 3 of this embodiment is set to be higher than the revolution “ns” at the operation point of the conventional internal pump (n>ns), and that is, hydraulic performance of each internal pump after its revolution being increased is shifted to a higher level.
According to the reactor coolant recirculation equipment of this first embodiment, the number of the internal pumps 3 to be arranged can be reduced without changing the arrangement and outer shapes of other equipments or elements in the lower drywell of the reactor pressure vessel 1 with the ten installation positions of the internal pumps being maintained as they are.
In the arrangement of this embodiment, the ten nozzles 4 are formed to the installation position of the internal pumps 3, and the nozzles 4 corresponding to no location of the internal pumps 3 are closed by closing plates 24 by means of, for example, welding. Further, in a case that requirement of increasing of the internal pumps 3 to be installed is caused in future because of power-up demand, for example, the internal pump 3 can be easily additionally installed and removing the closing plate 24.
Further, flanges or like members, which are detachably attached by means of bolts, may be utilized in place of the closing plate 24. Reference numeral 7 in
In this third embodiment, eight internal pumps 3 are installed at eight positions in the ten internal pump installation positions set around the circumferential direction of the bottom portion of the reactor pressure vessel 1, and two internal pumps 3, which are to be installed to opposing two portions, are removed. A passage 14a protruded for maintenance and/or inspection of the internal pump 3 is formed to a walking corridor 14 below the reactor pressure vessel 1 and below either one of the internal pump installation positions at which the internal pumps 3 are not installed. A ladder 16 or stairs 17 are arranged, as access means to the walking corridor 14, near the passage 14a.
In the structure of such reactor coolant recirculation equipment of this third embodiment shown in
This fourth embodiment is represented by
With reference to
In the heat exchangers 11 shown in
Further, in order to promote the flow of the cooling water, due to the natural convection, in the vertical-type heat exchanger 11, the cooling water pipe 10 has an inlet side 10a at an upper portion thereof and, on the other hand, an outlet side 10b at a lower portion thereof as shown in
The auxiliary cooling equipment 12 for guiding the cooling water of the internal pump 3 may be connected to portions 12a of the cooling water pipe 10 or shell or body sides 12b of the vertical-type heat exchangers 11 as shown in
In the arrangement of
According to the structure of the heat exchanger 11 shown in
In this fifth embodiment, eight internal pumps 3 are arranged, in which a plurality of, for example, two, power-supply sections (A-section 18, B-section 19) independent from each other are provided and a plurality of, the same as those of the power-supply sections, two in this embodiment, power-supply sections (A-section 18, B-section 19) of the auxiliary cooling water pumps 20, independent from each other are also provided. These power-supply sections (A-sections 18 and B-sections 19) for two internal pumps 3 connected to one heat exchanger 11 and two auxiliary cooling water pumps 20 are utilized commonly. That is, the same A-section 18 and B-section are commonly utilized for the internal pumps 3 and the corresponding auxiliary cooling water pumps 20.
In the case where adjacent two internal pumps 3 are driven to perform the cooling through one heat exchanger 11, since the power-supply sections for the auxiliary cooling water pumps 20 for supplying the cooling water to the heat exchanger 11are utilized commonly to those for the corresponding internal pumps 3, even if one of the A- and B-sections becomes defective, half numbers of the internal pumps 3 can be operated.
As mentioned above, according to the present invention, in the arrangement of the even number of internal pumps 3, even if one power-supply section becomes defective, the half number of the internal pumps 3 still become operative, and accordingly, the reduction of the core coolant flow rate due to the faulty of the power-supply can be attenuated to approximately same extent as that in the arrangement in the conventional nuclear power plant.
Moreover, in the arrangement of the eight internal pumps 3, as mentioned above, the power-supply section for the internal pumps 3 and the power-supply section for the auxiliary cooling water pump 20 for supplying the cooling water to the heat exchanger 11 are made common, so that the cooling water flow distribution in the nuclear reactor in the horizontal direction can be well maintained.
In the arrangement of
According to the embodiments of the present invention of the structures mentioned above, the space arrangement around the internal pumps 3 in the lower drywell 6 below the reactor pressure vessel 1 can be improved, and in addition, in the improved arrangement of the power-supply sections, even if one power-supply section becomes defective, the half number of the internal pumps 3 still become operative, and accordingly, the reduction of the core coolant flow rate due to the faulty of the power-supply can be attenuated. The maintenance and/or inspection workings of the internal pumps can be also improved.
It is further to be noted that the present invention is not limited to the described embodiments and many other changes and modifications may be made without departing from the scopes of the appended claims.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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2004-197454 | Jul 2004 | JP | national |