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Holtec hits milestones in Palisades restart, new reactor projects
Steam rises from the Palisades nuclear power plant. (Photo: Holtec International)
The restart of Palisades nuclear power plant in Covert, Mich., has hit a milestone with the passivation of its primary system, plant owner Holtec International announced Monday, even as a firm restart date has yet to be announced.
Passivation is a chemical process that improves corrosion resistance by making plant materials less reactive. During the process, the reactor’s primary system was brought to normal operating temperature and pressure. Holtec called this passivation phase an “essential step” in maintaining the long-term reliability of equipment.
Thomas J. Kissner, Ronald E. Wieneke
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 21 | Number 2 | March 1992 | Pages 583-587
Safety; Measurement and Accountability; Operation and Maintenance; Application | doi.org/10.13182/FST92-A29810
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Tritium Emissions Reduction Facility (TERF) is an automated process that continuously removes tritium from process gases before they are discharged to the atmosphere. Key control parameters include: temperature, pressure, flow, oxygen content, total combustibles, moisture concentrations and tritium concentrations. The procurement of an industrial, microprocessor-based Distributed Process Control System was justified for TERF due to the critical nature and complexity of the system. A detailed performance specification was prepared and submitted to industrial companies who had demonstrated past success in the field of process control and instrumentation. The contract was awarded to the Foxboro Company, of Foxboro, Ma., who developed the new Intelligent Automation (I/A) Distributed Process Control System. A primary goal of the design team was that the control system increase TERF reliability and availability by automatically controlling system operation and by assisting the operator in the diagnosis of problems, preventative maintenance, alarming, report generation, and long term storage of data. The comprehensive continuous monitoring of the TERF process provided by the Foxboro I/A Distributed System is expected to: (1) optimize the system operating parameters and control the process better than was previously possible, (2) provide more alerts and alarms to aid operators in diagnosing and responding to problems, and (3) record and organize process data more effectively than before.