Technel Engineering Inc. has designed, built and trained operators on a cart mounted, custom pressure calibrator for pressure testing the Primary Heat Transport system.

Technel has supplied a PHT Test System for the recent refurbishments at Bruce Power and Pt Lepreau

After any modifications to a PHT configuration, the CNSC (Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission) requires that the PHT system be pressure tested and be shown that the PHT can hold a specified pressure for a certain length of time. CNSC is on site to observe and accept/reject the pressure test.

A typical PHT configuration can have 200,000 litres of “water” in the system and with any modification involving new valves and joints, there is always a certain amount of leakage. That leakage spread over multiple valves and joints can amount to up to 15 gpm at 1900 psi.

The exact amount of leakage is never known so that the system has to be able to hold a specified pressure regardless of the leak rate.

The Technel PHT Test System allows the operator to compensate for the leak rate and still maintain a fixed pressure to meet the CNSC requirements.