Within the project of construction of the power unit with the BREST-OD-300 fast neutron reactor at the site of the Siberian Chemical Combine (SCC, an enterprise of TVEL Fuel Company of Rosatom in Seversk, Tomsk Region, West Siberia), the contracts are signed for manufacturing and supply of main technological equipment of the reactor installation.
In particular, SCC and CKBM (an enterprise of the machine-building unit of Rosatom) signed a contract for manufacturing and supply of equipment for the refueling complex. Also, production, supply and installation supervision of steam generators for the reactor facility will be provided by ZiO-Podolsk Machine-Building Plant (another enterprise of Rosatom’s machine-building unit).
Most of the technical solutions for the BREST-OD-300 reactor installation itself and its main equipment are innovative and have never been applied at any nuclear facility so far. The equipment of the reactor must ensure operations during the entire service life at high temperatures, high fluxes of ionizing radiation, in the flows of heavy liquid-metal coolant. The structural materials must have high corrosion and radiation resistance, as well as high temperature resistance to ensure reliability.
Unlike NPPs with light-water VVER reactors, where refueling is performed at "cooled" reactor, the BREST-OD-300 project provides that these operations will be carried out at the temperature of the liquid-lead coolant of the primary circuit over 400° C. Before loading into the core, the fuel assemblies will be heated up in a special chamber and then placed into the core filled with a melt of lead coolant.
For the manufacturing of equipment capable of fail-safe operation under extreme conditions, the enterprises of Rosatom have carried out large-scale work, including R&D, design and engineering, selection of unique materials, development of models and testing stands, modeling of the processes and drawing the final technical projects.
“The special thing about all facilities of the Experimental Demonstration Energy Complex in Seversk is that all the key equipment, including the BREST reactor facility and the units for nuclear fuel fabrication and reprocessing, is absolutely unique at the global scale. The team of the “Breakthrough” project all the time has to solve unconditional tasks, which are related not just to the facilities construction management, but also to a large program of R&D and technical design”, said Natalia Nikipelova, President of TVEL Fuel Company.
The production of high-tech equipment for the reactor facility is supposed to take from three to five years, installation of the main equipment should be completed in 2025.
The power unit with an installed electric capacity of 300 MW with an innovative fast neutron reactor is the key facility of the experimental demonstration energy complex (EDEC), which is under construction at the site of Siberian Chemical Combine as part of the strategic “Proryv”, or the “Breakthrough” project. In addition to the power unit, the EDEC will include the on-site closed nuclear fuel cycle, embracing the unit for fuel fabrication (re-fabrication) of mixed nitride uranium-plutonium nuclear fuel, as well as the unit for irradiated fuel reprocessing. The “Breakthrough” project is aimed at development of the new technological platform of the nuclear power industry capable of solving the current issues of handling and storage of spent nuclear fuel and waste.