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US 5,596,613 AGranted
Pressure suppression containment system for boiling water reactor
AssigneeGeneral Electric Company
InventorsDouglas M. Gluntz, Loyd B. Nesbitt
Life of this patent
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AssigneeGeneral Electric Company
InventorsDouglas M. Gluntz, Loyd B. Nesbitt
Estimating the term…
A system for suppressing the pressure inside the containment of a BWR following a postulated accident. A piping subsystem is provided which features a main process pipe that communicates the wetwell airspace to a connection point downstream of the guard charcoal bed in an offgas system and upstream of the main bank of delay charcoal beds which give extensive holdup to offgases. The main process pipe is fitted with both inboard and outboard containment isolation valves. Also incorporated in the main process pipe is a low-differential-pressure rupture disk which prevents any gas outflow in this piping whatsoever until or unless rupture occurs by virtue of pressure inside this main process pipe on the wetwell airspace side of the disk exceeding the design opening (rupture) pressure differential. The charcoal holds up the radioactive species in the noncondensable gas from the wetwell plenum by adsorption, allowing time for radioactive decay before the gas is vented to the environs.
In a boiling water reactor comprising a containment vessel, a reactor pressure vessel surrounded by said containment vessel with a drywell therebetween, a nuclear fuel core arranged inside said reactor pressure vessel, a suppression pool arranged inside said containment vessel and partly filled with water to form a wetwell airspace overlying said water, a condenser pool of water arranged above said drywell, a condenser submerged in said condenser pool, a condenser inlet flow path for coupling steam from said drywell into said condenser, a first condenser outlet flow path for coupling steam and noncondensable gas from said condenser into said suppression pool, a main condenser located outside said containment vessel and connected to receive gas from the reactor pressure vessel after the gas has passed through a turbine located outside said containment vessel, an offgas treatment system for removing radioactive species from gas not condensed by said main condenser (hereinafter "offgas"), a conduit which penetrates a wall of said containment vessel, said conduit having an inlet which communicates with said wetwell airspace and having a rupture disk installed in a portion of said conduit located outside said containment vessel, whereby noncondensable gas is released from said wetwell airspace via said conduit in response to rupture of said rupture disk, the improvement wherein said conduit has an outlet which communicates with an inlet of said offgas treatment system.
A method for preventing escape of radioactive fission gases into the environs of a boiling water reactor having a containment vessel, a reactor pressure vessel surrounded by said containment vessel with a drywell therebetween, a nuclear fuel core arranged inside said reactor pressure vessel, a main condenser located outside said containment vessel and connected to receive gas from the reactor pressure vessel after the gas has passed through a turbine located outside said containment vessel, and a suppression pool arranged inside said containment vessel, said suppression pool being partly filled with water to form a wetwell airspace overlying said water, said method comprising the steps of:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.