Comparison of Plant Response of Forsmark 3 Nuclear Power Plant to Forsmark 1 Type of Transient (25th July 2006), Using the HAMBO BWR Simulator: Thermal-Hydraulic Aspects

Modernisation of control rooms of the nuclear power plants has been a major issue during the last few years. With this as a basis, the BWR plants in Sweden and Finland funded, in co-operation with the Halden Project, an experimental HAMBO BWR simulator project based on the Forsmark 3 plant in Sweden. VTT Energy in Finland developed the simulator models for HAMBO with the aid of their APROS tool, while the operator interface was developed by the Halden Project. The simulator and its performance have been described in other publications [1, 2]. On July 25th 2006 there was a short circuit at Forsmark 1 nuclear power plant when manoeuvring equipment in the 400kV-switch yard. Due to the short circuit, the plant suffered an electrical disturbance that led to scram and failure of two out of four diesel generators. The purpose of the study carried out at VTT in 2007 was to assess the capabilities of the HAMBO BWR simulator to handle Forsmark 1 type of events in different nuclear power plants (Forsmark 3 in this case). The Forsmark 1 incident showed (among other things) that the intention to protect certain components (in this case the UPS-system) can in certain situations affect negatively to the safety functions. It is concluded that most of this type of BWR transients may be simulated to a certain extent using the existing HAMBO- and APROS- models. A detailed modelling of the automation and electric systems is required sometimes if the complex interplay between these systems and the process is to be predicted reliably. The modelling should be plant specific and level of detail should be assessed case-by-case (i.e. what kind of transient is in question, what systems are available, what is the main purpose of the analyses etc.). The thermal-hydraulic models of the APROS-code seem to replicate well the real behaviour of thermal-hydraulic process provided that there is enough information about the transient in consideration.