Water monitoring as a safety feature for nuclear desalination

Abstract

It is widely accepted that the general safety approach for nuclear facilities is valid for a Nuclear Desalination Plant (NDP), thus IAEA standards and guides are applicable. The coupling of a NDP should be designed with the safety objective of ensuring that it results in no adverse effect on the Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) safety. The first objective (provisions of barriers) is complied with by the known NDP design, so the relevant issue becomes the design features preventing the transfer of radioactive material to the product water, even in the event of system failures. This presentation drafts a coupling-system safety assessment, from fundamentals and general requirements down to specific design requirements. The state of the art of monitoring systems imposes constraints on the coupling design, in terms of hold-up capability and piping interconnection. This conceptual design shows the system's complexity implied in having monitoring of product water as a safety feature, and conclusions are extremely relevant when drafting general user requirements for a NDP project.