Requirement Specification for Station Blackout Gas Turbine Generator in a Nuclear Power Plant

The ultimate purpose of nuclear power plant safety systems is to prevent damage to the reactor and the possible release of radioactive materials into the surroundings following an internal or external event that interrupts normal power plant operation. Different design principles have been developed and they are incorporated to the safety design to ensure the safety functions are performed even if some components or whole systems fail to function as intended. Many nuclear power plant safety systems rely on electrical power to operate. Following a loss of off-site power accident, the power plant electrical systems are supplied by the emergency power sources. Station blackout generators constitute an alternative source for AC power designed for situations where all the main emergency diesel generators a fail to function in accident conditions. To introduce diversity into the emergency power sources, gas turbine generator units are proposed to be used instead of diesel generators as station blackout power sources. Current nuclear regulations regarding the emergency power generating facilities in a nuclear power plants only consider diesel engines for the application. The motivation for this research is the absence of a national or a global standard for the design and acceptance testing of gas turbines in this application. In this thesis the main goal is to determine the requirements for a station blackout gas turbine generator so that it fulfils its role in the overall nuclear power plant safety system design. The requirement specifications composed as part of this thesis covers the requirements for design, operation, maintenance, qualification and testing of the station blackout emergency power facility including the facility layout, gas turbine engine, generator, instrumentation and control systems and auxiliary support systems such as fuel and lubrication systems. The decisions behind the technical or quality requirements will be explained and discussed to justify the chosen requirements