The Hindu : National : AHWR to attain criticality soon, says BARC director

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Thursday, Aug 16, 2007
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AHWR to attain criticality soon, says BARC director

Arunkumar Bhatt

Design of Compact High Temperature Reactor optimised

MUMBAI: Even as the Prime Minister skipped the ‘N’ word in his Independence Day speech, Dr. Srikumar Banerjee, director of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) talked about several important achievements on the roadmap of nuclear technology while unfurling the tricolour at Trombay here on Wednesday.

He said the Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR), a major milestone towards thorium utilisation, would attain criticality very soon. “Commissioning of various systems including the moderator system, loading of fuel assemblies and shut-off rods, deployment of an advanced alarm annunciation system developed in-house, have been completed.”

The AHWR translates India’s proven experience in heavy water into a thorium-based system, providing a kind of technological short-cut in using thorium which is in abundant supply in the country unlike uranium.

The BARC has optimised the physics design of Compact High Temperature Reactor (CHTR) to extend its core life from 3000 to 5500 full power days, he said adding that a liquid metal natural circulation loop employing lead Bismuth Eutectic alloy as the coolant was installed to study the CHTR behaviour.

The CHTR is a futuristic technology based on thorium and the BARC was developing it for applications like producing hydrogen, building small unattended power packs for electricity generation in remote areas, refinement of low-grade coal and oil deposits to recover fossil fuels, etc.

Technology demonstrator

The present CHTR is a technology demonstrator aimed at designing and building Indian High Temperature Reactor (IHTR). Dr. Banerjee said the BARC was designing 600 MW(th) HTR for hydrogen production and 5 MW(th) Multi-purpose Nuclear Power Pack (MNPP).

“I am happy to announce that we have started manufacture of MOX fuel pins for Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) and the first batch of 100 full length MOX fuel pins have met all the stringent fuel specifications.”

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