– First of all: the characteristics of the American nuclear fuel of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and the design codes of the active zones of its reactors have been known to professionals for a long time. One cannot claim that such codes (we have ours, the Americans have others, the French have others) are completely open, but they are open for non-commercial applications – for their verification and mutual control. Yes, we cannot use, for example, the American Relap in our nuclear power plant project to justify security. But we had so many opportunities to compare our “Corsair” code with it, that you wonder why such a question arose … Now let’s get to the point. Nuclear fuel from the American company Westinghouse was loaded into the cores of four of the six reactors of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. In the other two – the second and the sixth – the previously delivered Russian-made fuel continued to work. American fuel loading in Russian geometry (in our fuel assembly it is a hexagon, in the American design fuel assembly it is a square) was carried out at the Zaporizhzhia station after its test loadings at the power plant nuclear plant in southern Ukraine. It was there, even before 2014, that the Americans began this work in cooperation with NAEK, the main operator of nuclear power plants in Ukraine. At one time there was even a joint exchange of chess data, in which Russian organizations also participated. The Americans overcame a huge number of problems that arose at the very beginning. And with test batches of their fuel for Russian-designed reactors, the picture was not very attractive: a large number of fuel element failures, low stiffness of fuel assemblies.
At one point they tried to create so-called hybrid zones at the nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine: they simultaneously put our traditional fuel and American fuel in the reactor. The Westinghouse fuel assemblies proved fragile: the cores began to bend, the fuel rods began to lose their seal. The AEP in Kharkiv and the AEP in Kiev were committed to it, and we all knew it. Their fuel cell shells are different from ours, hence a special alloy of zirconium and niobium, for the worse. In the late 1990s, we published a joint report on this with the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It was a unique precedent for the time: the report was published in the United States and it showed the advantages of Russian nuclear fuel – in various aspects, including cladding.
I will add a few more words on settlement codes. As far as I know, the letter mentions the neutron-physics group code – it’s nothing special. Normal code and all. I repeat: they are not new to us, we have known them for a long time, since we carry out joint programs within the framework of the IAEA and the OECD.
Another issue is that Westinghouse is itself, it’s a business organization. And at the state level in the United States, there is the Nuclear Regulatory Commission – NRC. And they also have all these codes – maybe a little in other versions. Joint justifications of the accuracy of calculations using these codes (ours and not ours) have been going on for more than 30 years in all international programs. Their Relap and our “Corsair” are the same in essence and meaning, everything is based only on the degree of verification and validation, which is the same today.
I believe that is the answer that will be given to the American side: if you have questions, we have answers – we are ready to discuss. And we’re not going to use your codes for any purpose – military or commercial, if that is the question. Russia has its own. And, to put it mildly, no worse than the Americans.
Help “RG”
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p class=””>Asmolov Vladimir Grigoryevich – graduate of MPEI (1970), began his professional career as an engineer, head of a laboratory and department at the Kurchatov Atomic Energy Institute. For his participation in the liquidation of the consequences of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, he was awarded the Order of Courage. He held leading positions at the Rosenergoatom enterprise, in 2003 – 2004 – Deputy Minister of the Russian Federation for Atomic Energy. In the spring of 2011, due to the critical situation of the Fukushima nuclear power plant, he led a group of Russian experts and voluntarily flew to Tokyo to provide technical and advisory assistance. Currently, he is an adviser to the general director of the state corporation Rosatom, scientific director of the development of VVER-type power reactors, chairman of the scientific and technical council of Rosatom for nuclear energy.
Vladimir Asmolov. Photo: Alexander Emelyanenkov / RG
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