Reliability analysis of safety grade decay heat removal system of Indian prototype fast breeder reactor

Abstract

The 500 MW Indian pool type Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR), is provided with two independent and diverse Decay Heat Removal (DHR) systems viz., Operating Grade Decay Heat Removal System (OGDHRS) and Safety Grade Decay Heat Removal System (SGDHRS). OGDHRS utilizes the secondary sodium loops and Steam–Water System with special decay heat removal condensers for DHR function. The unreliability of this system is of the order of 0.1–0.01. The safety requirements of the present generation of fast reactors are very high, and specifically for DHR function the failure frequency should be less than ∼1E-7/ry. Therefore, a passive SGDHR system using four completely independent thermo-siphon loops in natural convection mode is provided to ensure adequate core cooling for all Design Basis Events. The very high reliability requirement for DHR function is achieved mainly with the help of SGDHRS. This paper presents the reliability analysis of SGDHR system. Analysis is performed by Fault Tree method using ‘CRAFT’ software developed at Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research. This software has special features for compact representation and CCF analysis of high redundancy safety systems encountered in nuclear reactors. Common Cause Failures (CCF) are evaluated by β factor method. The reliability target for SGDHRS arrived from DHR reliability requirement and the ultimate number of demands per year (7/y) on SGDHRS is that the failure frequency should be ⩽1.4E-8/de. Since it is found from the analysis that the unreliability of SGDHRS with identical loops is 5.2E-6/de and dominated by leak rates of components like AHX, DHX and sodium dump and isolation valves, options with diversity measures in important components were studied. The failure probability of SGDHRS for a design consisting of 2 types of diverse loops (Diverse AHX, DHX and sodium dump and isolation valves) is 2.1E-8/de, which practically meets the reliability requirement.