Specialized studies for heat exchangers for Hinkley Point C NPP

UK

On 15th September 2016 the UK Government approved the construction of Hinkley Point C (HPC), a 3200MW nuclear power station consisting of two European Pressurized Reactors (EPR) located in Somerset, England. HPC will be the first nuclear power station built in the UK in over 20 years, with a projected lifespan of 60 years.

IDOM was contracted to provide specialist technical support to validate the design of ten heat exchangers of the HPC nuclear island, using the French design code RCC-M. The project was split in 2 phases: ECI (Early Contractor  Involvement) and MCW (Main Contract Works).

During ECI phase, IDOM provided sufficient information to the client to de-risk the manufacture of the heat exchangers by undertaking the necessary design and analysis to confirm the physical dimensions, mass and anchoring of the heat exchangers, coupled with the materials to be used in their construction. The aim of this work was also to provide the civil design with load information of sufficient certainty to enable them to undertake the final detailed design of the civil structure housing the heat exchangers.

In the ECI phase, the following tasks were performed:

• Thermal modeling using HTRI Xchanger Suite 7 to verify the unit designs to meet performance requirements and check fluid velocities specified under fatigue analysis.
• Mechanical design by hand calculations using Mathcad and Finglow according to RCC-M and other pressure vessel codes (ASME VIII, WRC 107/297) to verify the main dimensions and general parameters of the equipment.
• Anchor and embedded baseplate design verification according to ETC-C considering hand calculation loads.
• An environmental design study to provide justification for technology selection and demonstrate consideration of environmental protection performance during the design phase.
• Several risk analysis studies to satisfy Pressure Equipment Directive (PED) conformity assessment requirements for pressure-related risks. Radiological risks were also considered.
• Production of a Design Risk Register to inform and communicate project safety aspects in accordance with CDM 2015 Regulations.

In the MCW phase the following tasks were performed:

• General arrangement drawings using Autodesk Inventor to enable the manufacturer to produce manufacturing drawings
• Several stress code compliance and fatigue studies of all heat exchangers according to RCC-M code using Finite Element Analysis (FEA) software ANSYS APDL. All heat exchangers were required to be seismically qualified.

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