A team of five young specialists from the nuclear safety and reliability department of the Leningrad NPP under construction have had an internship at the Novovoronezh NPP. The group consisted of the employees who will be acting as controlling physicists when operating the new power blocks. They will be the ones to control nuclear safety during any in-station activities with nuclear fuel.

“Several departments at the plant are involved in operations with nuclear fuel, the nuclear safety and reliability department. Our controlling physicists monitor the way nuclear fuel is being handled at all phases of the NPP life cycle, including the activities needed to prepare a power block for service and during the operation (the first “fresh” fuel delivery and its acceptance test, the physical and the power startup phases, the nuclear fuel exploitation in the reactor core, and the spent nuclear fuel dispatch for regeneration). They have to be qualified and possess hands-on skills and experience. That’s why we have suggested an internship at Novovoronezh because our colleagues over there were having a rush physical startup period at a referent power block”, said Sergey Guscha, the head of the department.

According to the specialists who have completed the internship, at the Novovoronezh NPP they have had a chance to both meticulously study the workflow for transport and technological operations when discharging the simulation zone and gain the precious practical experience in controlling nuclear safety during the first nuclear fuel load into the reactor, as they could witness the physical startup of the innovative Novovoronezh NPP power block No.6.

“At the moment, our work at the Leningrad NPP is only related to documents, so it was critical for us to observe in the real time the way our colleagues at Novovoronezh upload the fuel into the reactor. We were highly impressed! They do their best”, said Oksana Baskakova, the nuclear safety and reliability department engineer.

“We have seen how nuclear fuel assemblies were reloaded from the transfer basket into the reactor (both at the fueling machine desk and at the central hall), have learned how to control the neutron flux during this operation. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. Thanks to this internship, we could witness the whole process of core fueling. I will be more confident when completing similar works at the new Leningrad NPP power blocks”, Roman Legkih, the 1st category engineer, added.

The Leningrad nuclear specialists are going to visit the Novovoronezh NPP again shortly. The new internship’s topic is “Exit at the critical level and physical experiments needed to confirm the expected core fueling neutronic and physical data”.

The Leningrad NPP is an affiliate company for Rosenergoatom Concern OJSC. The plant is based in the city of Sosnovy Bor, 40 km to the west from Saint Petersburg at the Gulf of Finland shore. The Leningrad NPP is the first Russian nuclear power plant having RBMK-1000 reactors (uranium-graphite channel-type thermal neutron reactors). The NPP exploits 4 power blocks with the electric capacity of 1000 megawatt each. Also, pursuant to the NPP-2006 project, 1,2 VVER-1200 power blocks included into The State Atomic Energy Corporation ROSATOM long-term plan are being constructed. Rosenergoatom Concern OJSC is the owner and developer of the project. Holding TITAN-2 is the primary contractor. ATOMPROEKT is the general designer.

The Leningrad NPP Information and Public Relations Administration.