Nuclear Power Plants for the Icebreaker Fleet and Power Generation in the Arctic Region: Development Experience and Future Prospects

Abstract

The technical characteristics of a power series of reactor installations developed at Afrikantov OKBM are presented. The technical qualities making facilities equipped with modern ship reactor installations commercially attractive are shown to have undergone evolutionary improvement. First and foremost these are facilities for universal nuclear icebreakers under construction and an icebreaker in the design stage. Designs of optimized floating and ground-based power-generating units with improved user qualities are being developed on the basis of the experience gained in the development of a floating nuclear heat-and-power plant based on the Akademik Lomonosov floating power-generating unit. Promising reactors of the type RITM are used in these designs. They differ fundamentally from the block-type units by the integral steam-generating unit, heightened energy resource, and long intervals between refuelings, which are possible owing to the innovative core with metal-ceramic fuel and new structural materials. The possibility of significantly increasing the resource of the new reactor installations is confirmed by its stepped increase on operating nuclear ships and by scientific-technical studies.