Loss-of-pressure-control Accident - Causes of A Loss of Pressure Control

Causes of A Loss of Pressure Control

Many failures in a reactor plant or its supporting auxiliaries could cause a loss of pressure control, including:

• Inadvertent isolation of the pressurizing vessel from the reactor plant, via the closing of an isolation valve or mechanically clogged piping. Because of this possibility, no commercial nuclear power plant has any kind of valve in the connection between the pressuriser and the reactor coolant circuit. To avoid clogging anywhere in the primary circuit, the coolant is kept very clean, and the connecting pipe between the pressuriser and the reactor coolant circuit is short and large diameter.

• A rupture in the pressurizer vessel, which would also be a loss-of-coolant accident. In most reactor plant designs, however, this would not limit flowrate through the core and therefore would behave like a loss-of-pressure-control-accident rather than a loss-of-coolant accident.

• Failure of either the spray nozzles (failing open would inhibit raising pressure as the relatively cool spray collapses the pressurizer vessel bubble) or the heaters of the pressurizing system.

• Thermal Stratification of the liquid portion of the pressurizer. When the liquid portion of the pressurizer becomes stratified, the lower layers of water (furthest from the steam bubble) are subcooled and as the steam bubble slowly condenses, pressurizer pressure will appear relatively constant but actually will be slowly lowering. When the operator energizes pressurizer heaters to maintain or raise pressure, pressure will continue to drop until the subcooled water is heated up by the pressurizer heaters to the saturation temperature corresponding to the pressure of the steam (bubble) portion of the pressurizer. During this reheating period, pressure control will be lost, since pressure will still be dropping when it is desired to raise pressure.