Installation of eight passive heat removal system (PHRS) heat exchangers has been completed at unit 1 of the Rooppur NPP being built by Rosatom in Bangladesh. Each heat exchanger is a metal structure weighing over 32 tonnes, 8,530 metres long and 5,904 metres wide. The installation was carried out at elevation +38.1 metres. The PHRS is a passive safety system which ensures long-term removal of heat from the reactor core into the atmosphere in the absence of all sources of power supply.
“During the operation of the system, atmospheric air enters the PHRS heat exchanger, which cools it from one side, while steam from the steam generator condenses inside the heat exchange tubes,” explained Alexei Deriy, Vice President of JSC ASE, Director of the project for the construction of Rooppur NPP. this followed installation in July of the ventilation pipe at unit 1.
The Rooppur plant is being built by Rosatom on the eastern bank of the Ganges River in Bangladesh’s Pabna district, about 160 km northwest of Dhaka. It will comprise two VVER-1200 reactors. In November 2011, Russia and Bangladesh signed an inter-governmental agreement on cooperation in the construction of the NPP and in mid-December 2015, a general contract was signed. Construction began in 2021. Construction of the unit 1 began in November 2017 and unit 2 in July 2018. All the plant's fuel is being provided by Rosatom under a contract finalised in August 2019, and the final protocol approving deliver was signed in May. The used fuel will be returned to Russia for processing.
Earlier in August, the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission inspected nuclear fuel at Russia’s Novosibirsk Chemical Concentrates Plant (part of Rosatom’s Fuel Company TVEL), for the initial fuel loading at Rooppur 1.
Image courtesy of Rosatom
