Pressurizer

A Pressurizer is a component of a pressurized water reactor. The basic design of the pressurized water reactor includes a requirement that the coolant (water) in the reactor coolant system must not boil. Put another way, the coolant must remain in the liquid state at all times, especially in the reactor vessel. To achieve this, the coolant in the reactor coolant system is maintained at a pressure sufficiently high that boiling does not occur at the coolant temperatures experienced while the plant is operating or in an analyzed transient. To pressurize the coolant system to a higher pressure than the boiling point of the coolant at operating temperatures, a separate pressurizing system is required. That is the function of the pressurizer. A Pressurizer is a component of a pressurized water reactor. The basic design of the pressurized water reactor includes a requirement that the coolant (water) in the reactor coolant system must not boil. Put another way, the coolant must remain in the liquid state at all times, especially in the reactor vessel. To achieve this, the coolant in the reactor coolant system is maintained at a pressure sufficiently high that boiling does not occur at the coolant temperatures experienced while the plant is operating or in an analyzed transient. To pressurize the coolant system to a higher pressure than the boiling point of the coolant at operating temperatures, a separate pressurizing system is required. That is the function of the pressurizer. In a pressurized water reactor plant, the pressurizer is basically a cylindrical pressure vessel with hemispherical ends, mounted with the long axis vertical and directly connected by a single run of piping to the reactor coolant system. It is located inside the reactor containment building. Although the water in the pressurizer is the same reactor coolant as in the rest of the reactor coolant system, it is basically stagnant, i.e. reactor coolant does not flow through the pressurizer continuously as it does in the other parts of the reactor coolant system. Because of its innate incompressibility, water in a connected piping system adjusts equally to pressure changes anywhere in the connected system. The water in the system may not be at the same pressure at all points in the system due to differences in elevation but the pressure at all points responds equally to a pressure change in any one part of the system. From this phenomenon, it was recognized early on that the pressure in the entire reactor coolant system, including the reactor itself, could be controlled by controlling pressure in a small interconnected area of the system and this led to the design of the pressurizer. The pressurizer is a small vessel compared to the other two major vessels of the reactor coolant system, the reactor vessel itself and the steam generator(s). Pressure in the pressurizer is controlled by varying the temperature of the coolant in the pressurizer. Water pressure in a closed system tracks water temperature directly; as the temperature goes up, pressure goes up and vice versa. To increase the pressure in the reactor coolant system, large electric heaters in the pressurizer are turned on, raising the coolant temperature in the pressurizer and thereby raising the pressure. To decrease pressure in the reactor coolant system, sprays of relatively cool water are turned on inside the pressurizer, lowering the coolant temperature in the pressurizer and thereby lowering the pressure.