Main steam safety valve with „controlled blow-off of steam" in accordance with ASME Sec.III, NC-7512

In 1986, the NRC issued the Information Notice (IN) 86-05 „Main Steam Safety Valve test failures and ring setting adjustments". Shortly after this IN was issued, the Code was revised to require that a full flow test has to be performed on each CL.2 MSSV by the manufacturer to verify that the valve was adjusted so that it would reach full lift and thus full relieving capacity and would reclose at a pressure as specified in the valve Design Specification. In response to the concern discussed in the IN, the Westinghouse Owners Group (WOG) performed extensive full flow testing on PWR MSSVs and found that each valve required a unique setting of a combination of two rings in order to achieve full lift at accumulation of 3% and reclosing at a blowdown of 5%.

The Bopp & Reuther MSSV type SiZ 2507 has a „fixed blowdown" i.e. without any adjusting rings to adjust the "blowdown" so that the blowdown is "fixed". More than 1000 valves of this type are successfully in operation in nuclear power plants. Many of them for over 25 years. Therefore it can be considered as a proven design.

It is new that an optimization of this MSSV type SiZ 2507 fulfill the requirements of part NC-7512 of the ASME Section III although there are still no adjusting rings in the flow part. In 2000, for the Qinshan Candu unit 1&2 full flow tests were performed with 32 MSSV type SiZ 2507 size 8" x 12" at 51 bar saturated steam in only 6 days. In all tests the functional performance was very stable. It was demonstrated by recording the signals lift and system pressure that all valves had acceptable results to achieve full lift at accumulation of 3% and to reclose at blowdown of 5% .

This is an advantage which gives a reduction in cost for flow tests and which gives more reliability after maintenance work during outage compared to the common MSSV design with an individual required setting of the combination of the two rings.

The design of the type SiZ 2507 without any adjusting rings in the flow path is presented. The stable performance depends on the interaction of flow force and spring force. The optimization of the flow path to create a suitable flow-force-curve was managed by Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and flow-force-characteristic-measurements at a model 1: 2.5 ! The method of the flowforce- characteristic-measurement permits systematic dimensioning of valve spring forces by means of measurement of the fluid mechanical forces occurring on the valve spindle during flow [1], [2].

A special procedure was established to verify a spring force versus lift curve with an accuracy of 1% for each production valve. This provides high reliability and the required stable performance which can not be influenced by wrong setting of any adjusting ring during maintenance work.

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