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RITM-200 Atomic Reactor, Icebreaker

The newest nuclear icebreaker operated by Atomflot, 50 Years of Victory, was actually not so new. The ship of the project 10521, which by far was the largest in the world, went into operation in 2007, but it was laid down at the Baltic Shipyard on October 4, 1989. The rest of the nuclear icebreaker fleet in Russia is even older, but meanwhile, the strategic plans in the Arctic are expanding from year to year, which means that a new ship is needed to implement them. They became the nuclear icebreaker of project 22220 (type LK-60Ya).

The technical project of the nuclear-powered icebreaker of project 22220 was developed by the Iceberg Central Design Bureau in 2009. The ship was conceived as universal with the possibility of use both in deep water and in river beds, thereby replacing two icebreakers of the Arctic and Taimyr classes, respectively. The ship’s double-draft is achieved by ballast tanks: to operate as a heavy icebreaker, water is collected into the tanks, and the vessel increases its draft by two meters, and to work at the mouth of the river, the ballast water is drained, the vessel floats up and acts as a shallow icebreaker.

The terms of reference for the icebreaker stipulated that the ship, in continuous operation at full capacity in deep water, should overcome continuous flat fast ice with a maximum thickness of 2.8 m at a speed of 1.5-2 knots. The declared high consumer qualities of the universal atomic icebreaker (UAL) required the creation of a new nuclear power plant (NPP), which became the RITM-200 installation, developed by Afrikantov OKBM.

The RITM-200 Reactor Plant (RU) with a capacity of 175 MW is a fundamentally new step in the development of the icebreaker fleet. The switchgear has a unique energy-efficient integrated layout, which ensures the placement of the main equipment directly inside the case of the steam generating unit. This allows us to attribute the RITM-200 reactor to the 3rd generation of civilian ship-class reactor plants. In contrast to the 2nd generation of reactor plants (OK-900 and KLT-40), in the 3rd generation, a transition was made from a block layout to an integral one. New engineering solutions made it possible to implement the stringent restrictions on the weight and size characteristics incorporated in the terms of reference. Thanks to the integrated layout, the RITM-200 reactor turned out to be two times lighter, one and a half times more compact and 25 MW more powerful than the KLT-40 reactor units. The weight of the reactor is 147.5 tons, height - 7.3 meters, diameter - 3.3 m. The steam generating unit reliably works when exposed to the side rolling of the ship with an oscillation amplitude of ± 45º and pitching with an amplitude of ± 15º, as well as with a long roll of up to 30º.

The RITM-200 nuclear power plant is capable of providing more economical operation of the new nuclear icebreaker compared to the existing ones with increased reliability and safety. Improvement of RU went in the following areas:

• reduction in the composition of equipment and its overall dimensions;
• increased maneuverability;
• increase equipment life;
• decrease in own energy consumption.

In RITM-200 RU, the placement of the main circulation path of the primary coolant with the core and steam generators in the integrated casing led to a decrease in the number of pressurized equipment casing, as well as eliminating the end welds between them, as a result of which the processability of the casing was increased, the terms and the cost of its manufacture. The reduced hydraulic resistance of the circulation circuit led to a decrease in the maximum power of the primary circuit circulation pump (TsNPK) and ensured a high level of natural circulation. In addition, the integral design of the steam generator unit (PHB) made it possible to place an active zone of a sufficiently large size in it, and a decrease in the neutron fluence due to an increase in the diameter of the reactor vessel made it possible to add an operating life of the reactor.

A cassette-type core is located in the reactor, containing 199 fuel assemblies with cermet fuel from uranium-235 enriched up to 20%. A nickel-chromium alloy with a higher corrosion resistance and resistance to violation of the water-chemical regime than the traditional zirconium alloy is used as the material of the shell of the fuel elements. The core operating life is 7 years.

In the steam generating unit, a collector circuit with forced circulation of the coolant during normal operation and its natural circulation during emergency cooling is adopted. The collector circuit makes it possible to increase the survivability of PHB in case of steam generator and TsNPK failures, since the disadvantage of a loop circuit is eliminated - the need to turn off working equipment located in the same loop with the faulty one. In the reactor installation, a highly efficient direct-tube direct-flow steam generator was used, the specific steam capacity of which is almost twice as high as the operating coil ones.

The arrangement of switchgear is provided in individual protective shells made of steel, water and concrete, completely separated physically and spatially. The estimated dose load on the crew of the nuclear icebreaker during normal operation and design basis accidents does not exceed 0.01% of the natural background. The radiation dose even in a beyond design basis accident with severe damage to the core is lower than the values at which protective measures are required.

The safety of RITM-200 RP is based on the following principles: high heat storage ability of integral type PHB, ensuring the level of natural circulation of the primary coolant, sufficient for operation of the installation at a power of up to 30% of the rated and reliable cooling of the reactor, the minimum length of the primary pipelines, the use of outflow limiters in small nozzles. To limit the adverse effects of failures of external systems and energy sources, as well as personnel errors, the project uses devices and systems of a passive principle of operation that operate on the basis of natural processes that do not require external energy. So, to ensure a high level of security in case of multiple failures in the control equipment and inaction of the personnel, devices are used in the project,

The lead icebreaker of project 22220, known as the Arctic, was laid down on November 5, 2013 on the slipway A of the Baltic Shipyard. Its length is 173.3 meters, width 34 meters, draft on the structural water line is 10.5 meters, the minimum working draft is 8.55 meters. The ship's displacement is 33,540 tons. Architectural and constructive type of icebreaker: three-deck, with an elongated tank, an excess freeboard, a multi-tier superstructure and the location of the power plant compartments along the length of the hull. The main power plant includes two reactor units, a steam turbine unit with two main turbogenerators, three propeller motors operating on fixed-pitch propellers.

Nuclear-powered icebreaker of project 22220 is the largest and most powerful in the world, and due to the increased width (34 m instead of 30 m on nuclear-powered ships of the Arctic type), it is capable of carrying out tankers of up to 100,000 tons displacement in the Arctic alone.

The first nuclear icebreaker of the new generation “Arctic” was launched on June 16, 2016. In the same month, the first power plant with two reactors for the LK-60Ya lead icebreaker manufactured at the ZiO-Podolsk plant was delivered to the icebreaker construction site.

In addition to the leading Arctic icebreaker, the Baltic Shipyard built two more serial icebreakers of Project 22220 - Sibir and Ural. The launch of the Sibir nuclear-powered submarine took place on September 22, 2017.