Design of Feedwater Heaters for the AM600 Turbine Island

The Advanced Modern 600 MWe (AM600) project represents the conceptual mechanical design and layout of a Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) Turbine Island intended to address challenges associated with emerging markets interested in nuclear power. The biggest challenge relates to project financing and the subsidiary issue of maintaining the construction schedule. To address that challenge in part, the AM600 is designed with a single cylinder low pressure turbine rotor matched to a condenser module. The module integrates all low pressure Feedwater Heaters (FWHs) into the condenser neck. This study investigates the design and sizing of a single string of FWHs to demonstrate proof-of-concept of the AM600 design. Specifically, the condenser is designed as a factory fabricated module which includes the installed low pressure FWHs along with major piping and valving. The analysis and design summarized here demonstrate that using industry standards and guidelines, along with accepted engineering practices, the AM600 can accommodate a modular condenser design while allowing for continued operation with an FWH Out-of-Service (OOS).