Chennai, Aug 22: The supply of the main equipment for the third unit of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KNPP) in Tamilnadu was completed recently. Vice president for projects in India of ASE, Russia’s Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation Engineering Division, Andrey Lebedev, said that all equipments located within the red line of the reactor pit installation have been supplied. Rosatom State Corporation is the equipment supplier and technical consultant for KNPP.
Shipment
The shipment consisted of the molten core catcher, embedded parts of reactor pit, dry protection, heat-insulation of cylindrical shell/barrel, truss buckstay, reactor vessel. These are part of the enhanced safety features in VVER-1000 reactors. A thrust truss and devices for neutron flux monitoring chambers allocation are expected to be delivered by the next shipload, according to a press release.
Core catcher
A core melt localization device (CMLD), or a ‘core catcher,’ is one of the most important passive safety systems of modern nuclear power plant of Russian design. CMLD is installed at the bottom of the plantsās protective shell. It is designed to localize and cool the molten core material in case of a hypothetical accident that could lead to damage to the core. It allows the integrity of the protective shell to be preserved and thus excludes radioactive emission in the environment, even if the hypothetical accident is serious.
āTaking into account that four steam generators, a pressurizer, main coolant pipelines and a bubbler were delivered earlier, ASE has mostly completed the procurement of the containment equipment for the third unit to ensure uninterruptible and continuous operations for the reactor plant construction which is on the critical path of the project,ā said Andrey Lebedev.