Major Safety Aspects of Advanced Candu Reactor and Associated Research and Development
- Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, 2251 Speakman Drive, Mississauga, Ontario, L5K 1B2 (Canada)
The Advanced Candu{sup R} Reactor design is built on the proven technology of existing Candu plants and on AECL's knowledge base acquired over decades of nuclear power plant design, engineering, construction and research. Two prime objectives of ACR-700TM1 are cost reduction and enhanced safety. To achieve them some new features were introduced and others were improved from the previous Candu 6 and Candu 9 designs. The ACR-700 reactor design is based on the modular concept of horizontal fuel channels surrounded by a heavy water moderator, the same as with all Candu reactors. The major novelty in the ACR-700 is the use of slightly enriched fuel and light water as coolant circulating in the fuel channels. This results in a more compact reactor design and a reduction of heavy water inventory, both contributing to a significant decrease in cost compared to Candu reactors, which employ natural uranium as fuel and heavy water as coolant. The reactor core design adopted for ACR-700 also has some features that have a bearing on inherent safety, such as negative power and coolant void reactivity coefficient. Several improvements in engineered safety have been made as well, such as enhanced separation of the safety support systems. Since the ACR-700 design is an evolutionary development of the currently operating Candu plants, limited research is required to extend the validation database for the design and the supporting safety analysis. A program of safety related research and development has been initiated to address the areas where the ACR-700 design is significantly different from the Candu designs. This paper describes the major safety aspects of the ACR-700 with a particular focus on novel features and improvements over the existing Candu reactors. It also outlines the key areas where research and development efforts are undertaken to demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of the design. (authors)
- Research Organization:
- American Nuclear Society, 555 North Kensington Avenue, La Grange Park, IL 60526 (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 21167900
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: ICAPP'02: 2002 International congress on advances in nuclear power plants, Hollywood, FL (United States), 9-13 Jun 2002; Other Information: Country of input: France; 2 refs
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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