Monitoring of the VVER nuclear reactor internals Original Research Article

This paper presents a review of the published pressurized water reactor accidents caused by internal vibrations. These accidents are evaluated with respect to their impact on the safety and economy of nuclear power generation. Subsequently, criteria for a monitoring system which would allow the prevention of such accidents are proposed. Structures and some results obtained at NRI Řež in the course of such system development are presented as well. The results comprise experimental and computational analyses of the behaviour of the VVER-440/V-213 reactor internals and primary coolant.