DEVELOPMENT OF A STEAM GENERATOR LANCING SYSTEM

DEVELOPMENT OF A STEAM GENERATOR LANCING SYSTEM

It is recommended to clean steam generators of nuclear power plants during plant outages. Under normal operations, sludge is created and constantly accumulates in the steam generators. The constituents of this sludge are different depending on each power plant characteristics. The sludge of the Kori Unit 1 steam generator, far example, was found to be composed of 93% ferrous oxide, 3% carbon and 1% of silica oxide and nickel oxide each. The research to develop a lancing system that would remove sludge deposits from the tubesheet of a steam generator was started in 1998 by the Korea Electric Power Research Institute (KEPRI) of the Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO). The first commercial domestic lancing system in Korea, the $KALANS^(R)-I$ Lancing System, was completed in 2000 for Kori Unit 1 for cleaning the tubesheet of its Westinghouse Delta-60 steam generator. Thereafter, the success of the development and site implementation of the $KALANS^(R)-I$ lancing system for YGN Units 1&2 and Ulchin Units 3&4 was also realized in 2004 for sludge removal at those sites. The upper bundle cleaning system for Westinghouse model F steam generators is now under development.