Htgr Projects in China

The high temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR) is a graphite moderated, helium cooled reactor with ceramiccoated fuel particles (TRISO fuel particles). The HTGR is inherently safe and expected to be applied to various industrial fields such as electric generation, hydrogen production, etc. with high efficiencies. It is also recognized as a representative advanced nuclear system for the future. At the beginning of the year 2006, China issued guidelines on a national mediumand long-term program for science and technology development (2006-2020), announcing that it planned to speed up the pace of research on 16 key technologies including the pressurized water reactor (PWR) and the HTGR. In China, research and development on the HTGR technology has been ongoing for several decades. After an initial fundamental study, the 10MW High Temperature Gas-cooled Test Reactor (HTR-10) project was launched in 1992. It was built in the Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology (INET), Tsinghua University. The system, schematically illustrated in Fig. 1, reached its first criticality in 2000 and begun full power operation in 2003 (Wu, et al., 2002). Based on the success of the HTR-10, long-time operation and safety demonstration tests were carried out in order to record operation experiences and show the inherent safety features. Meanwhile, two new projects have been recently launched to further develop the HTGR technology. One is a prototype modular plant, denoted as HTR-PM, to demonstrate the commercial The High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor (HTGR) possesses inherent safety features and is recognized as a representative advanced nuclear system for the future. Based on the success of the HTR-10, the long-time operation test and safety demonstration tests were carried out. The long-time operation test verifies that the operation procedure and control method are appropriate for the HTR-10 and the safety demonstration test shows that the HTR-10 possesses inherent safety features with a great margin. Meanwhile, two new projects have been recently launched to further develop HTGR technology. One is a prototype modular plant, denoted as HTR-PM, to demonstrate the commercial capability of the HTGR power plant. The HTR-PM is designed as 2X250 MWt, pebble bed core with a steam turbine generator that serves as an energy conversion system. The other is a gas turbine generator system coupled with the HTR-10, denoted as HTR-10GT, built to demonstrate the feasibility of the HTGR gas turbine technology. The gas turbine generator system is designed in a single shaft configuration supported by active magnetic bearings (AMB). The HTR-10GT project is now in the stage of engineering design and component fabrication. R&D on the helium turbocompressor, a key component, and the key technology of AMB are in progress.