The Design Features of Integrated Modular Water Reactor (IMR)

Small-to-medium-sized (300–600MWe) reactors are required for the electric power market in the near future (2010–2030). The main theme in the development of small-to-medium-sized reactor is how to realize competitive cost against other energy sources. As measures to this disadvantage, greatly simplified and downsized design is needed. From such point of view, Integrated Modular Water Reactor (IMR), which electric output power is 350 MWe, adopts integrated and high temperature two-phase natural circulation system for the primary system. In this design, main coolant pipes, a pressurizer, and reactor coolant pumps are not needed, and the sizes of a reactor vessel and steam generators are minimized. Additionally, to enhance the economy of the whole plant, fluid system, and Instrumentation & Control system of IMR have also been reviewed to make them simplest and smallest taking the advantage of the IMR concept and the state of the art technologies. For example, the integrated primary system and the stand-alone direct heat removal system make the safety system very simple, i.e., no injection, no containment spray, no emergency AC power, etc. The chemical and volume control system is also simplified by eliminating the boron control system and the seal water system of reactor coolant pumps. In this paper, the status of the IMR development and the outline of the IMR design efforts to achieve the simplest and smallest plant are presented.