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BARC begins work on 900 MW pressurised water reactor

thestringshredder

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BARC begins work on 900 MW pressurised water reactor

CHENNAI: The Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), India's premier atomic energy research organisation, has begun work on designing a 900 MW pressurised heavy water reactor (PWR) after successfully building a 20 MW reactor in Kalpakkam and for the INS Arihant submarine, a top official said.

"We are planning to build a 900 MW PWR which will be entirely designed by us. The design work has started. It is called Indian Pressurised Water Reactor (IPWR)," BARC director Sekhar Basu said.

He said it may take around 10 years to build the reactor as one has to assess the capability of Indian industries to participate in such a venture.

Basu said technology is available to build bigger reactors from the smaller one.


Asked about the big leap that BARC is planning in terms of reactor capacity, Basu said: "It is easier to build bigger reactors than the smaller ones. We now have mastered the PWR technology."

He said that across the world, PWR reactors are first built to power submarines and later bigger versions are made.

BARC has a functioning PWR with a capacity of 20 MW at Kalpakkam at its PRP Centre. PRP originally stood for Plutonium Reprocessing Project. Prior to his current position, Basu headed the PRP.

The reactor for INS Arihant was designed and built based on the reactor at Kalpakkam, around 70 km from here.

Another nuclear scientist said that the PWR uses enriched uranium as fuel and ordinary water as coolant and moderator. A new enrichment plant has also been built in Mysore.

Taking a big leap is not new for the Indian atomic establishment. It had also designed the country's first fast breeder reactor that creates more fuel during fission than it consumes.

The 500 MW prototype fast breeder reactor (PFBR) was designed by Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR), Kalpakkam, with a 14 MW test reactor called fast breeder test reactor (FBTR).

Link - BARC begins work on 900 MW pressurised water reactor - The Times of India
 
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10 years? If USS Nimitz uses 100 MW reactor then hasnt India already produced a 80 mw reactor for arihant?
 
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As the person said that bigger reactors are much easier to build while smaller ones are tough to be built. So this one will work in both ways 1st making a land based big reactor & 2nd may be a standard testing platform for more miniaturization.
 
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@Dillinger, do you now understand what I meant by ToT...... this will be the VERY FIRST TIME you'll develop technologies on your very own, from A to Z...... furthermore, the sudden leaps you have been witnessing in the "recent" past have all been foreign ToT's in action........ btw, we got the same experience thanks to just ONE scientist... and no not AQ khan.....
 
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@Dillinger, do you now understand what I meant by ToT...... this will be the VERY FIRST TIME you'll develop technologies on your very own, from A to Z...... furthermore, the sudden leaps you have been witnessing in the "recent" past have all been foreign ToT's in action........ btw, we got the same experience thanks to just ONE scientist... and no not AQ khan.....

Yaara if you're referring to the PWR for the Arihant then the ToT involved was strictly limited to reactor safety mechanisms, and containment systems required for safely encapsulating the said reactor into a submarine's hull. Otherwise the core designing and fabrication was carried out by DAE/BARC. But your point stands, without the aforementioned safeties required for a miniaturized PWR we would not be able to build a nuke boat. From minimizing/mitigating loss of ductility in the pressure vessels due to the neutron flux caused by the reactor to mitigating the issue of corrosion and the resultant issues regarding the coolant loop- we required ToT specifically for miniaturization of reliable filter systems for the same- that's one of the safety measures we gleaned off which I was able to verify.

Otherwise we spent years developing the basic PWR on our own to master the know how and the know why of the basic system before up-scaling it (in output terms) and gleaning the above mentioned from the Russians.
 
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Yups. Very small things normally hold nations back for a very long time. For example CE for rockets, mirraging steel for you know what, exact composition of nickel-based super alloys and the EXACT production processes involved.... insignificant telemetry equipment.... ALL THESE THINGS in fact are not so insignificant, nations spent best part of last 100 years developing them, and they are not so willing to let go of such secrets... so everyone does what they do...... actually I'm all in favor or such activities, where by hook or by crook you acquire these techs and beat the western bastards.....

Yaara if you're referring to the PWR for the Arihant then the ToT involved was strictly limited to reactor safety mechanisms, and containment systems required for safely encapsulating the said reactor into a submarine's hull. Otherwise the core designing and fabrication was carried out by DAE. But your point stands, without the aforementioned safeties required for a miniaturized PWR we would not be able to build a nuke boat. From minimizing/mitigating loss of ductility in the pressure vessels due to the neutron flux caused by the reactor to mitigating the issue of corrosion and the resultant issues regarding the coolant loop- we required ToT specifically for miniaturization of reliable filter systems for the same- that's one of the safety measures we gleaned off which I was able to verify.

Otherwise we spent years developing the basic PWR on our own to master the know how and the know why of the basic system before up-scaling it (in output terms) and gleaning the above mentioned from the Russians.
 
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Two actually, one is very reclusive fella Dr. Butt... other who I admire a lot (MINUS HIS CRAZY RELIGIOUS SIDE) Dr. Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood (SUPER BRILLIANT GUY)

This guy single handedly gave us the ability to produce tritium, when *certain* friends refused to help us out....

Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Who do you mean?


Their students are once again just about to give us our very first marine reactor....
 
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I suppose either the report is little out of context or the writer has muddled up some facts.
Why would one need a 900 MWe behemoth for naval propulsion. even for 75000 Tons + US super carriers donot require more than 250 MW of power, 900 MW is an overkill. I guess Dr. Sinha must have either said 90 MW or perhaps he was reffering to an electrical Utility reactor (entirely a different issue).
 
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