TOWARDS CRITICALITY: O.P. Goyal, Station Director, TAPP-3 and 4, (extreme right) and his colleagues loading natural uranium bundles into the third reactor at Tarapur on Wednesday. — Photo courtesy: NPCIL, Tarapur

CHENNAI : In an important milestone, natural uranium fuel bundles were loaded into the third reactor of the Tarapur Atomic Power Project (TAPP-3) in Maharashtra on Monday.

The 540-MWe reactor will reach criticality by April-end or May first week.

"Fuel loading is going on smoothly. We got permission from the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) to load the fuel into the reactor on Monday morning and we began loading the fuel in the evening," S.K. Jain, Chairman and Managing Director, Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) told The Hindu . The TAPP-3 is a pressurised heavy water reactor (PHWR) that uses natural uranium as fuel and heavy water as both coolant and moderator.

There was brisk activity at TAPP-3 to start up the reactor when a team from The Hindu visited the site on March 14. NPCIL engineers were scurrying about and various systems were under commissioning. Miniaturisation is the hallmark of the electrical and instrumentation systems in the control room.

There is a single large control room with banks of computers for the third and fourth units of TAPP. Every parameter that will indicate the health of the reactor can be seen on the computer consoles.

The history of the parameters gets stored in the computers.

A machine called the `Start-up instrumentation system' has been moved to the portion of the control room meant for TAPP-3. The system was used when TAPP-3's twin, TAPP-4 reached criticality in March 2005. TAPP-4 is now generating around 495 MWe.

For a few weeks

"The fuel loading for TAPP-3 will last a few weeks. After this, we will add heavy water to the heat transport system and moderator system, and then we will approach criticality," said O.P. Goyal, Station Director, TAPP-3 and 4.

"Our team for TAPP-3 is a dedicated team. It is working round-the-clock. Our activities, therefore, are ahead of schedule," said Mr. Goyal, who is also Site Director, Tarapur, for NPCIL.

16 bundles a day

According to H.D. Singh, Chief Construction Engineer, TAPP-3 and 4, TAPP-3 has 392 coolant channels. Each will house 13 bundles of natural uranium fuel.

Each bundle weighs 24 kg. Nuclear Fuel Complex, Hyderabad, fabricates the bundles. On an average, 16 bundles will have to be replaced every day.

The first loading of bundles into the coolant tubes is done manually.

After the reactor starts generating electricity, removal and replacement of spent bundles is done by a robotic machine as the reactor vault will be inaccessible due to radiation.

R.K. Gargye, Chief Superintendent, TAPP-3 and 4, said the third unit would be commissioned six months ahead of schedule.

While the original estimate for construction of both TAPP-3 and 4 was Rs. 6,525 crore, NPCIL has built these indigenous reactors at a cost of only Rs.6, 200 crore, thus saving Rs.325 crore.

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