Nuclear Power Experts agree: Raising safety standards of Nuclear Power Plants world-wide is a central task
SCHOTT offers glass-to-metal sealed electrical penetration assemblies that meet the highest safety requirements of modern Nuclear Power Plants
Consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam Landshut (Germany) & Shanghai (China), December 2, 2013 – The international technology company SCHOTT recently participated in a Nuclear Safety Symposium hosted by the Chinese Nuclear Energy Association (CNEA). With this event, the CNEA successfully offered a valuable platform for 200 experts from Chinese, US-American, French, German and Korean design institutes, utility corporations, nuclear plants and technology companies to exchange know-how and ideas. The summit focused on the question of how the safety levels of Nuclear Power Plants can be significantly improved. There was a wide consensus among the nuclear community that this can only be achieved by designing reactor containment structures and using component technologies that can reliably fulfill the higher safety specifications defined for Severe Accidents.
Severe Accidents (SA), which can result from flooding or station black-outs, can lead to high pressures and high temperatures, for instance. These scenarios create very complex requirements for the designs, parts and components especially of the reactor containment building – the heart of the nuclear power plant and its security concepts. This is the core element needed to maintain control during and after SA conditions.
“In order for the containment structure to fulfill its purpose, it is mandatory that, in future, there is a consistent application of safety margins and higher specifications for all parts and components of the containment. The nuclear community worldwide is currently defining sufficient safety margins and adapting the specifications for improved safety in nuclear power. This can only prove to be successful if international standards such as IEEE, IEC and others are also increased,” said Dr. Oliver Fritz, member of the IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) and Head of Technology, Nuclear Safety Division at SCHOTT.
SCHOTT has supplied its glass-to-metal sealed electrical penetration assemblies (EPAs) to more than 50 nuclear power plants world-wide.
EPAs are important safety equipment at nuclear power plants and an integral part of the containment integrity, SCHOTT’s EPAs, which carry the new brand name Eternaloc™, are all uniquely and exclusively based on the unparalleled robustness of the company’s glass-to-metal seal technology which provides considerable advantages over organic epoxy seals.
SCHOTT just recently designed a new generation EPA for the Swedish Nuclear Power Plant, Forsmark 3, which is undergoing renewed investment to improve its safety and reliability. It can withstand the latest SA requirements defined by the operator: the EPAs have to withstand submerged conditions under 13 meters of water for at least 30 days and with pressures of up to 8.3 bar and temperatures up to 185°C. In addition, the EPAs must withstand a radiological exposure of 1.7 MGy at a dose rate of 2360 Gy/h. The use of inorganic sealing material such as SCHOTT glass for the pressure boundary of the EPA minimizes the effect of high radiological exposures and maintains the containment integrity beyond SA.
SCHOTT has also developed EPAs which fulfill the high design specifications of Small Modular Reactors. These EPAs can even be used directly in reactor vessels since they can withstand high temperatures of 320°C and the pressures of 160 bar and beyond.
