Reactor Dosimetry Aspects of the Service Life Extension of the Hungarian Paks NPP

Abstract

Abstract. The service life of the Hungarian Paks Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) will be extended from the originally planned 30 years to 50 years. To improve the reliability of the results obtained in frame of the old reactor pressure vessel (RPV) surveillance programme, new methods have been developed, and based on them, the old exposition data have been re-evaluated for all the four reactor units. At the same time, a new RPV surveillance programme has been developed and introduced, and long term irradiations have been performed to determine the radiation damage of the surveillance specimens due to the high fast neutron exposition. Neutron transport calculations have been performed with a validated neutron transport code system to determine the fast neutron exposition of the RPVs during the extended service life. The cavity dosimetry is in the introductory phase. This paper presents the new developments in the field of the RPV surveillance dosimetry and summarises the results obtained. According to the results the service life of the NPP can safely be extended for the planned 50 years.