NUCLEAR CHEMISTRY

The talented consultants at SI are highly experienced in a wide range of specialties, including troubleshooting, chemistry and engineering services, and chemical optimization at Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs) and Pressurized Water Reactors (PWRs).

Whether your needs are focused on BWR or PWR, SI can provide cost-saving strategies, assessment support, and training for both PWR and BWR chemistry operations.

BWR Chemistry

Common Systems

PWR Chemistry

Training

BWR CHEMISTRY OPTIMIZATION

Condensate Resin Optimization

Purchase and disposal of ion exchange resin is a costly annual expense. It is standard amongst many plants to schedule replacement based on past bed performance.

SI’s optimization approach offers potential cost savings by evaluating the following:

Typical cost savings have been determined to be $65,000 to over $300,000 per unit, per year.

RWCU (Reactor Water Cleanup)

Evaluating if the RWCU flow can be increased to allow for potentially up to double the current cleanup capacity (increased removal and cleanup from excursions, resulting in a reduction in CEI impact)
System improvement opportunities with operations and Chemistry interface to improve precoat application and backwash
Proactive preparation and execution of filter element replacement (typically replaced once per lifetime)
CEI reduction and improved chemistry performance

Sampling Frequency Reduction

A site-specific assessment can support less frequent reactor water anion analysis. It helps establish suggested trigger values and evaluates the impact of reducing reactor coolant anion sampling from daily to three times per week. This evaluation is based on maintaining long-term system reliability, even with an increased potential for operating above Action Level 1 or Good Practice (CEI Impact) for extended periods. Additionally, cost savings are achieved by appropriately reducing technician time and sampling efforts, while still maintaining optimal chemistry control.

Common Systems

Program Change Management

Open and Closed Cooling Water

Cycle Chemistry Reports

PWR CHEMISTRY OPTIMIZATION

Shutdown Optimization

Address previous challenges and limits in shutdown degas strategies that impact the critical path
Use gas modeling on existing shutdown degas strategies to determine the extent of critical path savings
Potential critical path savings in time on plant shutdown
Determine strategies to prevent the recurrence of shutdown delays associated with chemistry
Shutdown Plan Improvement Opportunities

Primary Resin

Primary resin shortloading and “long-cycling” have been successfully implemented at various sites in the industry since the early 2000s with no adverse chemistry effects
Requires rigorous change management strategy and implementation plan
Results: Potential annual cost savings in radioactive waste disposal between $100k-$300k per unit

Secondary Layup Strategy

Strategy to minimize time spent in undesirable layup conditions (corrosive environments)
Review of condensate pH and oxygen scavenger control during outages
Review of fill and flush sequence during plant start up
Review of sequence of restoring secondary components on start up
Recommendation on alternative oxygen scavenger implementation
Results: Reduce corrosion rate of steam generator (extend life of steam generator) and minimize startup FW Fe impacts (minimize CEI impacts on start up)

TRAINING

Training courses for general, BWR and PWR-specific topics are available. Each course is presented by one of SI’s industry-leading experts. Contact us for your specific training needs.