nuke plant I worked at just hiccupped...

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Too bad it was during startup last year and it took this long to run till failure. As I'm no longer there its hearsay on my part but evidently the hotwell pumps were acting up and the ops kept restarting it until a chunk of condenser wall imploded.
 
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Yes condensate return pumps. Had one out of spec for vibration, another one had a motor catch on fire, corrugated bellows distended etc. Afaik they haven't checked it out yet besides the hole in the wall that shouldn't be there - lol.
 
BTW, there is a new book out there that we use to introduce people to Nuclear Energy Generation.

Energy from Nuclear Fisson, by Enzo deSantis, Springer.

Sadly, it does not contain info about Pebble Bed Reactors but does give good explanations of most conventional reactor designs.
 
Originally Posted By: ebr1190rx
Yes condensate return pumps. Had one out of spec for vibration, another one had a motor catch on fire, corrugated bellows distended etc. Afaik they haven't checked it out yet besides the hole in the wall that shouldn't be there - lol.


I lost a bellows when somebody left a plastic garbage bag in the condenser steam space, and when it hit the strainer, it "hammered".

Are the Hot well offtakes on the side, or the more common lower flat surface of the Condenser ?

I've seen 3 foot long cracks in the 2" thick condenser walls caused by poor design of steam drain penetrations.

Only 2 years in sounds like a fundamental design flaw...
 
SUBJECT: SHUTDOWN DUE TO CONDENSER FAILURE

On March 23, 2017, at 12:14 a.m., Watts Bar Unit 2 was operating at 16 percent power when

the B waterbox of the main condenser experienced a structural failure causing the loss of the
running main feedwater pump and an automatic turbine trip. All Auxiliary Feedwater Pumps
(AFW) started as expected and operators manually inserted control rods to lower reactor power
to about 3 percent as directed by plant procedures. Subsequently, the operators shut all Main
Steam Isolation Valves (MSIVs) due to steam in the turbine building from the damaged B
condenser waterbox. Upon closure of the MSIVs, heat removal was maintained through the
steam generator power operated relief valves. The reactor was later shut down as part of a
planned evolution. Watts Bar Unit 2 is currently stable in Mode 3.
This preliminary notification is issued for information only and no specific reactive inspection by
the staff is anticipated. Region II received initial notification of this occurrence by telephone from
the senior resident inspector at 1:07 a.m. on March 23. Subsequently, at 2:48 a.m., the
Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) issued an 8-hour Event Notification (EN) 52630 due to the
automatic start of the AFW pumps in response to the main feedwater pump trip. The
information presented herein has been discussed with TVA and the State of Tennessee, and is
current as of 1:00 p.m., March 23.

People I know say the hole is large enough for 3 people to walk through at once. Hearsay is rampant but I've heard 3 6 and 8 months to fix.
 
So water box being the Cooling water, not steam side of the condenser same as my thermals ?

I've seen some nasty water hammer incidents when they aren't burped properly before 8 tons per second of cooling water is sent their way.
 
Afaik the side. We used alpha bravo etc to denote personnel access and delineation of turbine/condenser sections. Waterboxes were north south. So I believe its steam side. We also called the waterbox side ccw pumps. NRC personnel were vaguely authoritative but clearly clueless when I had interaction with them...
 
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It was bfn fire that they obligated all craft to have a laborer (me) as designated only job as fire watch. But now they are allowing craft to do their own fw. In my capacity as cleaner I actually walked up to 2 different craft teams and said laconically "you're is on fire". It is clear that the usual laborer jobs like confined space, fw and fme are lacking. Scuttlebutt is that there is concrete footers damaged and a sucked in total horizontal delta of 13 ft. Minimum 1 year to fix.
 
I liked it when they had the Visitor's Center at Brown's Ferry where you could interactively walk around the plant. I loved it how you could walk past the remains of a burnt down cooling tower as well, and it showed that something was there.
 
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