Ageing management programme development for the Safari-1 research reactor
In the nuclear industry all around the world, it has been built and are building hundreds of research reactors. Most of them are planned to be exploited during an extensive period of time, some of them working for more than 60 years. This fact justifies the need to establish an ageing management pla...
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| Tipo de recurso: | tesis de maestría |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2024 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) |
| Repositorio: | UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC |
| Idioma: | inglés |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/411821 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://hdl.handle.net/2117/411821 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Nuclear reactors Nuclear reactors--Safety measures Reactors nuclears Reactors nuclears--Mesures de seguretat |
| Sumario: | In the nuclear industry all around the world, it has been built and are building hundreds of research reactors. Most of them are planned to be exploited during an extensive period of time, some of them working for more than 60 years. This fact justifies the need to establish an ageing management plan with the objective of maintaining them in good and safe operational conditions until their last exploitation instant, trying to extend their lifetime. This study objective is to establish a simple and clear methodology to constitute an ageing management plan applicable to a great diversity of research reactors. Independently of their size, design, and legislation by which they are governed. Obtaining as a result, a concise and posteriorly applicable to real life procedure. Nevertheless, it is worth noting the importance of the individualized study for each system or degradation mechanism for the different existent reactors, using this project results as a structure or base. For this purpose, it has been carried out an exhaustive study of the normative and international recommendation presented by IAEA. At the same time as the study of the materials, degradation mechanisms and most frequent systems in research reactors all around the globe. Including the explanation of the step-by-step process to develop and the different final documents of the project. In addition, is performed an objective and reproducible study of the most common key performance indicators (KPIs) to catalogue the suitability of this kind of programmes. All the previously commented theoretical methodology is applied through the study of a practical case, the research reactor SAFARI-1 in South Africa. Primarily, it includes a brief explanation of the main and specific characteristics of the reactor, in other words, its history, systems, technical aspects etc. Once the details of the reactor are determined on a qualitative way, the real application of the method for the particular case of the elements which suffer from erosion as degradation mechanism is carried out. Finalizing with the obtention of a complete programme and actually applicable for the research reactor. Finally, a study is implemented from the economic and environmental point of view of the development of the project, taking in to account the time spent and the precedence of the energetic source used during the development of this project. |
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