Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plant

Module 1- Introduction

by
Dr. Mukesh Sharma
Assistant Professor
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Birla institute of Technology Mesra, Ranchi
 INTRODUCTION
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Electricity ?

Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma

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Continue….

Thermal Energy
Sources of Energy (Conventional source of energy)

Coal
Hydro
Solar

Wind OIL

Renewable Energy
(Non - Conventional source of energy)
Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma
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Issues related to energy sources

Thermal
✓ Lot of electricity is obtained.
✓ Most of the power within our country is from the thermal power plants, which burn coal or oil.
✓ Coal fired plant produces lot of smoke.
✓ Smoke contains Sulfur Dioxide, Nitrous Oxide.
✓ This sulfur dioxide goes into the atmosphere, gets into the moisture, becomes Sulfuric Acid.
✓ The Nitrous Oxide becomes Nitric Acid and when this rain water falls, vegetation is destroyed.
✓ In the process of smoke release, lot of radioactivity is also released.
(Coal contains traces of Uranium and Thorium, which after combustion are released to the atmosphere.)
✓ On an average coal fire power plant releases 100 times the radioactive products to the environment
as compared to NPP

Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma

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Issues related to energy sources

Natural Gas
✓ India don't have that many natural gas plants.
✓ Most of the natural gas plants are found in USA
✓ The problem with the natural gas is that, it can cause an explosion.

Hydro Power

✓ In case of failure, it may result in to massive floods

Nuclear Power

✓ During accidents, radio active products may released.

Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma

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Continue….

Classification of Power Plants

Power Plants

Conventional Power Plants Non-conventional Power Plants

Steam Engine Power plant Solar Power Plants

Thermal Power Plants
Nuclear Power Plants
Hydro-Electric Power
Plants
Steam Turbine Power plant
Tidal Power Plants
Diesel Engine Power plant
Biogas, Biomass
Gas Turbine Power plant Energy Power system
Wind Energy Power
Systems
Geothermal Power
systems

Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma

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NON-CONVENTIONAL POWER PLANTS
SOLAR POWER PLANTS Continue….

Solar power towers (Heliostat power plants)

➢ Solar power towers also known as Concentrated

Solar Power (CSP) Towers
➢ These generate electric power from sunlight by
focusing concentrated solar radiation on tower
mounted heat exchangers.
➢ The system uses hundreds to thousands of sun-
tracking mirrors called heliostats to reflect the
incident sunlight onto the receiver.
➢ These plants are best suited for utility-scale
applications in the 30 to 400 MW range.

Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma

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NON-CONVENTIONAL POWER PLANTS
SOLAR POWER PLANTS Continue….

Solar power towers (Heliostat power plants)

Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma

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PRINCIPLE OF POWER GENERATION

Principle of Power Generation

✓ There are two fundamental ways to generate nuclear energy.

✓ One way is to break up a heavy element into two lighter elements
and produce heat, in a process known as nuclear fission.
✓ The other is to fuse two lighter elements together to form a
heavier element and produce heat, in a process known as nuclear
fusion.
✓ Commercial nuclear power production makes use nuclear fission.
✓ Using nuclear fusion to produce commercial energy is still under
research.

Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma

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PRINCIPLE OF POWER GENERATION
Nuclear Fusion

Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma

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PRINCIPLE OF POWER GENERATION
Challenges against using nuclear fusion

Incredibly high energy requirement

In order for fusion to occur, it needs a temperature of at least 100,000,000 degrees Celsius.
That’s slightly more than 6 times the temperature of the Sun’s core.
It should be noted that experimental fusion reactors do exist – and work! –
but they consume way more power than they produce, which basically defeats the purpose of
generating power using fusion.

Material requirements

Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma

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Nuclear Fission

Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma

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Nuclear Fission

Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma

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Overview

✓ India has 22 nuclear reactors in operation at seven sites, having an installed

capacity of 6780 MW and producing a total of 30,292.91 GWh of electricity.

✓ 11 more reactors are under construction to generate an additional 8,100 MW.

✓ Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) is a government-owned

corporation of India based in Mumbai which is responsible for the generation of

nuclear power for electricity.

✓ NPCIL is administered by the Department of Atomic Energy, Govt. of India.

Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma

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Nuclear Energy
The energy which is coming out of the fission of some of the nuclei like Uranium and Plutonium and the
heat produced is a gain used to convert water into steam, which runs a turbine generator.

Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma

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Nuclear Energy

Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma

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Applications of Nuclear energy

✓ Desalination of sea water Medicinal Desalination

✓ Medicinal application
Nuclear
energy
✓ Oil refining Many more

Oil refining
✓ Hydrogen production
Hydrogen
production

Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma

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Applications of Nuclear energy

Desalination of sea water

Nuclear Power Plant

Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma

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Applications of Nuclear energy

Medicinal Applications

✓ In Nuclear medicine, medical professionals inject a tiny amount of a radioisotope.

✓ A radio isotope is a chemical element that produces radiation into a patient’s body .

✓ A specific organ picks up the radioisotope, enabling a special camera to take a

detailed picture of how that organ is functioning.

Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma

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Applications of Nuclear energy

Oil refining

✓ Conversion of the heavier feedstocks ( heavy oils, tar sands, oil shale, and coal ) into

liquid fuels in an energy-intensive process

✓ In the case of coal liquefaction, the energy consumed in the liquefaction process is almost

twice the energy value of the liquid fuel.

✓ Using fossil fuels to power the conversion of heavy fossil feedstocks into lighter crude

produces exponentially more carbon dioxide and air pollution.

✓ Here instead of using heat from the fossil fuels, nuclear heat is used.

Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma

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Applications of Nuclear energy

Hydrogen production

Heat

Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma

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Nuclear Power
➢ It is produced from fission of U-235
➢ Only naturally occurring nuclear fissile material, 500 times more
abundant than gold.
➢ It is present in most rocks and soils as well as in many rivers and sea
water.
➢ Found in concentrations of about 4 ppm in granite, which makes up
60% of the earth’s crust.
➢ In fertilizers, uranium concentrations can be as high as 400 ppm
(0.04%), and some deposits contain uranium at concentrations
greater than 100ppm (0.01%)

Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma

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Fuels used in reactors

➢ The enrichment of uranium varies in the heavy water reactors.
➢ We use natural uranium as a fuel which contains about 0.7%.
➢ Most of the reactors in the world which are light water reactors, they
use somewhere between 2.5% to 5% of Uranium-235
➢ while the fast reactors use something like about 80% to 85%.
➢ Variety of processes have been developed to increase the percentage of
U-235.
➢ the fuel could be Uranium Oxide, Uranium Carbide or Uranium Metal.
➢ Uranium Metal was used in the initial reactors.
➢ But due to its low melting point Uranium carbide was used.

Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma

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Nuclear Fuel Cycle

✓ Uranium ore, as it is mined from the ground,

is not directly useable for power generation.

✓ Therefore processing must be carried out

before uranium can be used efficiently to

generate electricity.

✓ There are several steps in the nuclear fuel

cycle:

Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma

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Nuclear fuel Cycle

Mining
Depending on the depth and concentration of the uranium source, and the conditions of
the surrounding rock, mining companies will extract uranium ore in many ways like,
open pit mining, underground mining or In situ mining.
Milling
To extract the uranium, the ore is crushed in a mill and ground to a fine slurry. The slurry is
then leached in sulfuric acid, which produces a solution of uranium oxide (U3O8). The
concentrate of this solution is called yellowcake.
Refining
A series of chemical processes separate the uranium from impurities, producing high-
purity uranium trioxide (UO3).

Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma

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Nuclear fuel Cycle

Conversion
UO3 is converted to uranium hexafluoride (UF6) for enrichment, before it can be used in
light water reactors.
Enrichment
Uranium-235 is the uranium isotope that can be used in fission, but it makes up only 0.7%
of naturally occurring uranium, which is not concentrated enough for light water reactors.
So, enrichment processes increase the concentration of U-235 to about 3% – 5%. After
undergoing enrichment, the UF6 is chemically transformed back into UO2 powder.
Fuel manufacturing
Natural or enriched UO2 powder is pressed into small cylindrical pellets, which are then
baked at high temperatures, and finished to precise dimensions.

Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma

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Nuclear fuel Cycle

Electricity generation
Fuel is loaded into a reactor, and nuclear fission generates electricity. After fuel is
consumed, it is removed from the reactor and stored onsite for a number of years while its
radioactivity and heat subside.
Optional chemical reprocessing
After a period of storage, residual uranium or by-product plutonium, both of which are still
useful sources of energy, are recovered from the spent fuel elements and reprocessed.
Disposal
Depending on the design of the disposal facility, the nuclear fuel may be recovered if
needed again, or remain permanently stored. At some point in the future the spent fuel
will be encapsulated in sturdy, leach-resistant containers and permanently placed deep
underground where it originated.
Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma
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Nuclear fuel Cycle-Mining

Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma

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Nuclear fuel Cycle- Milling

Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma

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Nuclear fuel Cycle- Enrichment process

➢ When the uranium leaves the uranium mill and after refining, it is in the form of uranium trioxide (UO3) or
what is commonly called yellowcake.
➢ This uranium oxide is not the form of uranium that is used by nuclear reactors (UO2), therefore it has to be
enriched for use.

The enrichment process involves:

✓ converting the uranium oxide (solid) to uranium
hexafluoride (UF6), a gas,
✓ the UF6 is then enriched with respect U-235 and
converted to UO2, and
✓ this process creates depleted uranium (DU) which
has more U-238 and enriched uranium which has

Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants

more U-235 than natural uranium. Dr. Mukesh Sharma
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Nuclear fuel Cycle- Enrichment process

Diffusion Methods
✓ Gaseous diffusion forces uranium hexafluoride gas
through a series of semi-permeable membranes.
✓ Each pass through a membrane separates the two
isotopes from each other; it takes over a thousand
passes to make commercial nuclear fuel (3-5% U-
235).
✓ The lighter, smaller U-235 moves through the
membrane easier than the larger heavier U-238.
✓ After the UF6 is enriched by the specified amount,
then it condensed into a liquid and then solidified.

Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma

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These semipermeable membranes

Nuclear fuel Cycle- Enrichment process can vary from 100s to 10000s in
numbers

Diffused
U-238 Diffused Diffused Diffused
+ Enriched
U-235 Uranium

Un Diffused Un Diffused Un Diffused Un Diffused

Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma
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Nuclear fuel Cycle- Enrichment process

Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma

 Nuclear power production cycle
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Nuclear fuel Cycle- Enrichment process

Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma

 Nuclear power production cycle
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Nuclear fuel Cycle- Enrichment process

✓ Gas centrifuges uses centrifugal force (rapidly

rotating cylinders) to separate the two isotopes

from the UF6 gas.

✓ The heavier U-238 atom moves up and outward,

and the lighter U-235 atom moves toward the

center of the tube.

Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma

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Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma

 Nuclear power production cycle
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Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma

 Nuclear power production cycle
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Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma

 Reactor Startup
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Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma

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Moderators

✓ The neutrons are born at high energies.

✓ The probability of a fast neutron being
absorbed is very small.
✓ So, for a fission chain reaction to be
sustained, it is essential that the fission
neutrons be slowed down.
✓ This process is called neutron moderator.

Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma

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✓ Light water contains hydrogen which slows down the speed of neutron.
Moderators ✓ (because its mass is identical to that of neutron).
✓ hydrogen has a relatively high neutron absorption capability

Light water
✓ its benefits are similar to light water, but since it contains deuterium
atoms, its neutron absorption is much lower.
✓ high cost of production

Heavy Water
✓ Low absorption of neutrons.
✓ Releases beryllium dust, can cause serious lung diseases

Beryllium
✓ Low absorption.
✓ Combustible
✓ Fast neutrons can cause separation of graphite atoms which can
cause combustion.
Graphite

Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma

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Elements
-Matter exists in three physical forms; one is solid, liquid, and gas.
-These matters consists of different substances called elements.
-Basically elements are those substances which cannot be broken further into
simple or smaller substances

Atom
-An atom is the smallest particle of an element.
-Atoms are made up of neutrons and protons tightly clustered in a nucleus
-and surrounded by electrons spinning around in a variety of orbits

A=N+Z.

Mass Number Atomic

Number of Number
Neutrons

Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma

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Isotopes

Elements having same atomic number but different mass numbers.

Uranium exists in three isotopic forms; U-234, U-235, and U-238.

The proportion of these in the natural uranium it is about 0.0058% of U234

and about 0.711% of U235 and about 99.283% of U238

Radioactivity

The property of spontaneous nuclear decay, or the frequency of that

decay
Or,

Radioactivity is the process by which an unstable atomic nucleus loses

energy by emitting radiation, such as an alpha particle, beta particle.

Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma

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Nuclear Stability
Nuclear Stability is a concept that helps to identify the stability of an isotope.
Stability ✓ Nucleus holds the neutrons and protons by
line
N-Z line forces which counterbalance each other.
140 ✓ These are proton to neutron binding force and
120 proton- proton repelling forces.
Number of Neutrons, N

N/Z=1
100 ✓ For stable atom they are balanced.
80 ✓ It can be seen that the nuclei having protons<84
60 or neutrons<127 are stable.
40
✓ Hence those nuclei having protons>84 or
20
neutrons > 127 are unstable.
0
20 40 60 80 100 120 ✓ They try to become stable by emitting
Number of Protons, Z
radioactivity in the form of alpha, Beta and
Gamma rays.
Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma
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Nuclear Stability

✓ The dotted line is called the stability line. If a

Stability
line radioisotope does not lie on this line, it is unstable
N-Z line
and likely to decay to become stable.
140
Alpha Particles
✓ if a radioisotope lies to the left of the stability line, it
120
Number of Neutrons, N

N/Z=1 has too many neutrons and is likely to undergo β-

100
decay
80 Β- emitters
✓ if a radioisotope lies to the right of the stability line,
60
40 it has too many protons and is likely to undergo β+
Β+ emitters
20
decay
0 ✓ If particles have high numbers of protons (usually
20 40 60 80 100 120
Number of Protons, Z more than 83), they are likely to undergo alpha
decay.
Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma
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Gamma rays
Gamma decay, in contrast, occurs when a nucleus is in an excited state
and has too much energy to be stable.

Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma

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Half Life
✓ A radioactive half-life refers to the amount of time it takes for half of the original
isotope to decay.
✓ For example, if the half-life of a 50.0 gram sample is 3 years, then in 3 years only
25 grams would remain. During the next 3 years, 12.5 grams would remain and
so on.

Nt = mass of radioactive material at time interval (t)

N0 = mass of the original amount of radioactive material
k = decay constant
t = time interval (t1/2 for the half-life)

Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma

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Multiplication factor

✓ The probability that all neutrons produced by a fission reaction will cause
another fission is not always true.
✓ This is because, some neutrons will leak out of the reactor or absorbed in the
reactor structure or fuel itself, without causing a fission.
✓ To sustain the chain reaction, for each fissioned nucleus, there should be atleast
one neutron that causes fission.
✓ The multiplication factor is the term briefly describing this condition.
✓ K= neutron production from fission in one generation / neutron absorption in the
preceding generation.
✓ The effective multiplication factor is determined by finding out how many
neutrons are leaked out from the reactor.
𝑲𝑬𝒇𝒇𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒗𝒆 = 𝑲 × 𝑳𝒆𝒂𝒌𝒂𝒈𝒆 𝒇𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒐𝒓
Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma
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Criticality
✓ When the atom-splitting reactor of a nuclear power plant is operating normally,
it is said to be “critical” or in a state of “criticality.”
✓ “Criticality” indicates that a reactor is operating safely.
✓ In the balanced state of criticality, fuel rods inside a nuclear reactor are
producing and losing a constant number of neutrons, and the nuclear energy
system is stable. (𝑲𝒆𝒇𝒇 = 𝟏)
✓ When the reactor’s neutron production exceeds losses, characterized by
increasing power level, it is considered "supercritical“(𝑲𝒆𝒇𝒇 > 𝟏)
✓ When losses dominate, it is considered "subcritical" and exhibits decreasing
power. (𝑲𝒆𝒇𝒇 < 𝟏)

Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma

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Reactivity
✓ Reactivity is a measure of how much the reactor is away from the criticality
condition.
✓ In other words, whether it is becoming super critical or subcritical.
✓ If there are 𝑵𝒐 neutrons in the preceding generation then,
✓ There are 𝑵𝒐 × 𝑲𝒆𝒇𝒇 neutrons in the present generation.
✓ The numerical change in neutron population will be (𝑵𝒐 × 𝑲𝒆𝒇𝒇 − 𝑵𝒐 )
✓ The gain or loss in neutron population, expressed as a fraction of present
generation (𝑵𝒐 × 𝑲𝒆𝒇𝒇 ) will be
(𝑁𝑜 × 𝐾𝑒𝑓𝑓 − 𝑁𝑜 )
𝝆=
𝑁𝑜 × 𝐾𝑒𝑓𝑓
Or,

(𝐾𝑒𝑓𝑓 −1)
𝝆=
Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants 𝐾𝑒𝑓𝑓 Dr. Mukesh Sharma
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Feedback

Safety Aspects of Nuclear Power Plants Dr. Mukesh Sharma

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Breeding

✓ All commercial light water reactors contains both fissile and fertile materials.
✓ For example, most PWRS use low enriched uranium fuel with enrichment of 235U up to 5%.
✓ Therefore more than 95% of content of fresh fuel is fertile isotope 238U.
✓ During fuel burnup the fertile materials (conversion of 238U to fissile 239Pu known as fuel
breeding) partially replace fissile 235U,
✓ Thus permitting the power reactor to operate longer before the amount of fissile material
decreases to the point where reactor criticality is no longer manageable.

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References

Web resources

✓ https://en.wikipedia.org
✓ https://www.mtholyoke.edu
✓ https://technologystudent.com
✓ https://energypedia.info
✓ https://mekanizmalar.com

Reference books

1. Nuclear reactor Safety- principles and concept by G. Vaidyanathan, Yes Dee Publishing, (2017).
2. Nuclear Reactor Engineering by Samuel Glasstone, CBS Publishers & Distributors (2004)
3. Introduction to Nuclear Engineering by John r. Lamarsh, Pearson Education India (2014)

Power Plant Engineering Dr.Mukesh Sharma