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Power station planning in the UK
Published in Stan Openshaw, Nuclear Power, 2019
Flat and level site areas of 40 to 80 ha are necessary for nuclear plant, although in practice sites of at least 80 ha would be sought in order to provide development potential, that is multiple reactors on the same site. Sites should be above flood level (10 to 15 metres above high water mark) and protected from surface flooding. However to reduce pumping costs the total head of water must be kept low by maintaining syphonic recovery at all but extreme low tides. On high land this would mean deep excavations for the turbine hall. For coastal sites these factors imply costly site works for site levels outside the range 3 to 15 metres above sea level. The constraints are again largely economic, and would imply that cliff sites would not normally be considered – but they are not impossible either.
High Performance Concrete in Nuclear Power Plants
Published in Yves Malier, High Performance Concrete, 2018
The turbine hall is not protected from externally-generated hazards. Assurance only has to be provided that it will not collapse in the event of an earthquake. This means it is a standard industrial building. Various types of structures are encountered in different countries: - USA: structural steelwork- West-Germany: reinforced concrete- France: reinforced concrete up to the turbine generator set level and structural steelwork above.
Thermal Expansion, Bearings, and Lubrication
Published in Alexander S. Leyzerovich, Steam Turbines for Modern Fossil-Fuel Power Plants, 2021
Special investigations for diverse large steam turbines in service showed that the major causes why the turbine loses the freedom of thermal expansion can be: the increased friction on the sliding surfaces between the bearing pedestals and foundation frame, increased trans-versal load on the turbine from steam-lines connected to the turbine cylinders, poor transfer of the axial thrust from one cylinder to another, and insufficient rigidity of the foundation crossbars. For turbines of different types with different arrangement and operational conditions, the contribution of different causes can be different.1 The more the turbine output and the higher its main steam conditions, the more massive and rigid its adjoined steam-lines become. This especially concerns cold and hot reheat steam-lines. If their thermal expansion is ill-compensated, they vitally affect the turbine in its thermal expansion. As a result, it happens that the bearing pedestals are squeezed in their motion along the base frames. This influence is especially great if the steam-lines are settled asymmetrically relative to the turbine axis—for example, if the turbine is arranged along the turbine hall, that is, the boiler happens to be from one side of the turbine. It is difficult, if not impossible, to avoid such an arrangement for largest turbines of a great length that cannot be settled across the turbine hall in front of the boiler. The transversal forces from the steam-lines, as well as asymmetrical loads on the left-hand and right-hand paws of the high-temperature cylinders, sometimes become the main obstacle for free thermal expansion of the turbine.
Variable and Assured Peak Electricity Production from Base-Load Light-Water Reactors with Heat Storage and Auxiliary Combustible Fuels
Published in Nuclear Technology, 2019
These recent changes create economic incentives for nuclear reactors to operate at base load to minimize production costs while using heat storage to enable varying electricity production to maximize revenue while meeting variable energy needs. The combination of heat storage with assured peak generating capacity using a combustion heat source can meet the requirements of a low-carbon world. The economics are based on multiple factors: (1) heat storage is less expensive than electricity storage (batteries, hydro pumped hydro, etc.) and other options, (2) the cost of the nuclear power plant is in the nuclear steam supply system (NSSS), not the power cycle and thus creates large incentives for the NSSS to operate at full capacity while making major changes to the power cycle by adding storage, and (3) a low-cost boiler can provide assured capacity at lower costs than competing technologies such as gas turbines with little fuel consumption because peak electricity demand is primarily met with heat storage. These technologies can be retrofitted to existing LWRs. The options and capabilities are much larger with new turbine halls designed for variable electricity production. The combination of technologies potentially is the enabling technology for a replacement for fossil fuels in a low-carbon world and the enabling technology for larger-scale use of wind and solar by providing economic dispatchable electricity with power plants that can buy and sell electricity.