Nuclear center
EDF will control 90% of problematic cracks by the end of 2023
In France, more than 300 problematic cracks have been discovered on certain nuclear power plants belonging to EDF.
Posted
Cracks have been discovered in some nuclear power plants belonging to EDF.
AFP/Photo d’archives
EDF identified 320 welds deemed to be at risk of crack in its nuclear power plants. The company wants to achieve control of 90% by the end of the year, according to its strategy communicated to the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) after the recent discovery of a major crack in the Penly 1 reactor ( Seine-Maritime, France). “ASN takes note of this change in strategy and considers that it is EDF’s responsibility to implement it,” said the nuclear policeman in a press release on Thursday.
Several major cracks have been detected and revealed in recent days, including a size never before seen at Penly 1, on an emergency pipe used to flood the reactor with water in the event of a nuclear accident.
“Stress Corrosion”
This is the same phenomenon of “stress corrosion”, identified since October 2021 on several sites, but which has so far generated smaller cracks and on other areas of these pipes. In this case, this crack of unprecedented depth was on a pipe that had been the subject of special repairs during the construction of the plant in the 1980s.
Since this discovery, 320 line welds have therefore been identified as having been the subject of repairs at the time of the construction of the reactors. EDF’s revised strategy will make it possible to have controlled, by the end of 2023, more than 90% of the welding considered to be a priority among these 320, indicates the ASN on Thursday. Their exact number was not immediately communicated.
“Thermal fatigue” cracks
“The 90% are the welds on which there were the most important repairs”, explained Julien Collet, deputy director general at ASN, in a telephone call. Other so-called “thermal fatigue” cracks have also been identified on emergency pipes “considered to be sensitive to stress corrosion” at Penly 2 and Cattenom 3.
ASN estimates Thursday that “the discovery of a thermal fatigue defect among the large defects recently characterized, on a weld for which this mode of degradation was not expected, requires additional analyzes”.
(AFP)