China Nuclear Power Research and Design Institute, referred to as Nuclear Power Institute, is one of the earliest research departments in my country to start researching and designing nuclear reactors. They have persevered in the path of independent research and practical innovation and have spent the most difficult years. From today's perspective, it is really commendable and has made great contributions to my country's nuclear energy catching up with the world's advanced level. This article briefly describes the early history of the Nuclear Power Institute and its current new developments.
Regarding the contribution of the Nuclear Power Research Institute, Xinhua News Agency had a comment in 2019: "One afternoon in 1997, in a valley more than 100 kilometers away from Chengdu, Sichuan, there was a fierce debate in a two-story office building. More than 20 scientific researchers are discussing the main technical parameters of China's independent million-kilowatt nuclear power plan. It may be hard for them to imagine that the "seeds" planted at that time blossomed and bear fruit more than 20 years later and turned into "Hualong 1". "That "cold" is the predecessor of the Nuclear Power Institute, located in the 909 base in Jiajiang County, Sichuan.
In March 1965, China had launched a huge third-line construction under the dual pressure of the Soviet Union and the United States. According to the decision of the Central Committee, the nuclear submarine project (09 project) was officially launched. The Second Ministry of Machinery (post-Ministry of Nuclear Industry) and 15 Beijing Institute decided to set up a comprehensive base for reactor engineering research in Jiajiang County, aiming to study and set up In order to build a land-based model reactor for nuclear submarines, codenamed 909.
909 base factory photo
In order to build a land-based model reactor, more than 1,200 research institutes, colleges and factories have been mobilized nationwide to develop and produce more than 29,000 pieces of various equipment, instruments, instruments, valves and pipelines, and assemble and integrate them into a whole system project, located in 90 9 Base. However, due to the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution, the entire network surrounding the 09 Project was impacted. In March 1967, Liu Huaqing, deputy director of the National Defense Science and Technology Commission and director of the Seventh Research Institute of the Ministry of National Defense, reported to Marshal Nie Rongzhen. On June 20, 1967, Marshal Nie held the third coordination meeting of the 09 Project at the Beijing National Hotel and entered the venue in military uniform.
But when the directors and directors returned, they continued to be blocked. The personnel sent by Beijing to thoroughly investigate the "June 20 spirit" were also in trouble. In this situation, the personnel of the National Defense Science and Technology Commission were anxious. On August 30, Liu Huaqing sent a public letter to Marshal Nie Rongzhen, the vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, who was treating in the hospital. Marshal Nie signed the name on it. This was the first "Special Public Letter" issued by the Central Military Commission.
It reads: "Project 09 is a cutting-edge national defense project approved by Chairman Mao Zedong personally. Anyone, No unit shall impact the workshop with any excuse or reason, and shall not stop work and production for any reason..." (China Nuclear Power Research and Design Institute, 2006: 14-18) This order is conveyed to all places, and engineers, factory directors, secretary, and scientists who are detained are released. The network of 09 Project continues to operate at high speed around the telegram sent by the 909 base.
at that time produced by various factories across the country. The relevant equipment was sent to Jiajiang by a large horsepower car over mountains and ridges. The primary task of the base of Jiajiang is to design and build the first batch of test benches for China's nuclear power. It requires the design of 15 laboratories and devices such as model reactor test base, physical thermal engineering, structure, explosion, stress, welding, hydraulics, chemistry, and control. In February 1966, the research teams of 715 and 401 of Beijing settled in the valley of Jiajiang for two years. It was basically completed. On July 27, 1969, in order to strengthen construction efforts and due to the huge military pressure from the Soviet Union, the entire 715 Institute of Beijing and some of its families moved into Jiajiang. Many of them remained there in the future, and many people are still unknown because of the confidentiality of the information.
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 The submarine land-based mode reactor, the 909 base also undertakes the research and development of equipment used to develop reactor fuel components, which is called a high-throughput engineering test reactor. This task was undertaken by the 194 Institute in Beijing. In 1971, the Second Machinery Department took over the 909 base from the Navy and moved the 194 Institute there as a whole to concentrate its efforts to complete the work. On September 6, 1973, the Second Machinery Department renamed the 909 base to the Reacting Research Institute, also known as the "First Academy" of the Second Machinery Department.On December 16, 1980, the high-throughput engineering test reactor achieved full power operation. With it, China's first reactor R&D base capable of developing and building various nuclear energy test equipment was initially formed.
The first high-throughput engineering test reactor in the country
From the late 1970s to the early 1990s, the Nuclear Power Institute experienced the most difficult period. It has not received any scientific research funds or investment in the past 10 years, and has been constantly looking for projects to survive. For the Nuclear Power Institute, nuclear power computing is the most promising and resourceful industrial sector, but it was excluded from nuclear power projects throughout the 1980s. Although the Ministry of Nuclear Industry (Ministry of Second Machinery) began to build the first phase of Qinshan with the approval of the State Council, due to the relationship between the Nuclear Power Institute and the Navy and the listing of nuclear submarine projects, Zhou Shengyang, who took office in 1981, and more than 100 technical backbones were specially selected from the Nuclear Power Institute to form the 728th Academy to be responsible for the project (later Shanghai Nuclear Engineering Research and Design Institute).
Although not directly involved, the Nuclear Power Institute is also a provider of technical services. In June 1977, they successfully developed the fuel component manufacturing of Qinshan 1
phase 300,000 kilowatt nuclear power plant. In November 1978, the Second Ministry of Machinery asked the Nuclear Power Institute to attach importance to the research and design of the 600,000-kilowatt nuclear power plant. In April 1981, Zhao Renkai and other technicians of the Nuclear Power Institute (Zhao Renkai was the first chief designer of China's nuclear power plant and one of the technical leaders of the 196 reactor) submitted a technical report to the Second Ministry of Machinery and completed the design plan later. In September of the same year, the Second Ministry of Machinery invited the Nuclear Power Institute to participate in the process review work, which was the most direct project participation.
Qinshan Nuclear Power Plant (Phase I)
After the time, this Chinese nuclear energy research team of four or five thousand people seemed to have been forgotten in the valley of Jiajiang amid the sound of the wave of introduction in Daya Bay. With the "big contract" that was completely relaxed in 1985, the people of the Nuclear Power Institute also had to "fly the peacocks to fly southeast", and the survival of the entire institution has become the top priority for the deans. Qian Jihui, who took office as dean in 1988, recalled the past when the old dean Ren He ran around and looked for nuclear power projects: "In the most difficult time, I described our old dean as a beggar, heading north to Jilin, east to Shanghai, south to Hainan Island, west to Tibet, and "begging for food" with crutches. He traveled all over the country, leading a group of experts to ask for others and find projects, and it was dusty and ran for several years."
When Qian Jihui took office, the loss of talent was still serious, and about 200 people left every year. In order to survive, Qian Jihui wrote a letter to Jiang Zemin on May 2, 1991, saying that the country has neglected basic research on nuclear power, and that if this continues, the state-owned R&D platform may be gone. As a nuclear power major, China should have its own nuclear power R&D capabilities. Jiang issued an instruction on June 15, supporting the construction of the "nuclear power backbone experimental device" (he has participated in the mechanical industrial system project of the 2009 Project). Later, the State Planning Commission invested 190 million yuan in the Nuclear Power Institute to establish an experimental device in Chengdu, thereby moving the Nuclear Power Institute into the jurisdiction of Chengdu, which is called the "615 Project".
After experiencing such difficulties, the Nuclear Power Institute has also polished its unique organizational culture, because more people can walk, and the rest of them are all together to keep warm and work together. In addition to being in charge of superior departments, internal people have no relationship with organizations in Beijing or other places. Therefore, they are particularly independent, united, and attach importance to independent development, and are outside the ideological trend at that time.
For the Nuclear Power Institute, the "615 Project" is not a recovery, but a comprehensive upgrade. With the investment, the Nuclear Power Institute has designed all the devices of the Nuclear Power Institute's reactor test institute: the cold hydraulic test device of the control rod drive line, the overall hydraulic simulation test device of the core, the AC600 non-active waste heat discharge system test device, the Freon thermal equipment, the large thermal testing device, and the 6m×6m seismic simulation test bench... It can be seen that in the years of survival, the technicians of the Nuclear Power Institute have maintained the improvement of technical research capabilities, stubbornly developed and designed new test devices and equipment, and accumulated valuable scientific research and technical experience.
It should be emphasized that the preciousness of scientific research capabilities lies in the fact that any experimental device can only be valued if it is bound to scientific researchers and technicians, because the device is designed by the team itself. Only you know how to use it, what parameters and experience formulas are there. Without these scientists and engineers, other fellow professionals would not be able to operate them. The research and development and use of devices rely heavily on personal experience and strength, and can only teach them in the old way.
From this we can also know that the so-called "market exchange technology" is not feasible in theory. Because as the underlying pillar of technical R&D capabilities, the test devices and instruments do not have a trading object that can make them realize the same value, they are assets that cannot be priced by the market and have no actual transferees (this is one of the reasons why a large number of assets in the former Soviet Union were sold at a low price. Soviet equipment, factories, laboratories, and complex technical products lost their use value after they left the team). The so-called "technology" that can be bought is always information and terminal products that extend technology.
Readers who have read my previous article about "Hualong No. 1" may still remember that the Nuclear Power Institute carried out military-industry system reform in 1999 and joined China National Nuclear Corporation. Before this, the Institute of Nuclear Power had redesigned the Qinshan Phase II CNP650 reactor based on the French M310 reactor, and designed the CNP1000 and CPR1000, a million-kilowatt power reactor that China has independently owned. This is also the story of 1997 told by Xinhua News Agency at the beginning of the article. Therefore, the technical team of the Nuclear Power Institute is the well-deserved technical source of the "Hualong No. 1".
Today, my country is the world's number one leader in the fourth-generation nuclear power technology. In addition to the air-cooled fast reactor, the other five fourth-generation reactor types have been studied, and the development progress of some of the reactor types is unique in the world. At present, the Nuclear Power Institute is studying and designing a fourth-generation technology supercritical water-cooled reactor. The supercritical water reactor is the only reactor among the fourth generation nuclear reactors that uses light water as a coolant. The Nuclear Power Institute is the scientific research institution with the richest experience and strongest accumulation in the field of light water reactors in my country. At the end of 2013, the "Supercritical Water-Cooled Reactor Technology Research and Development (Phase I)" project undertaken by China Nuclear Power Research and Design Institute has passed the acceptance of national defense ** and proposed the overall technical route for supercritical water-cooled reactors.
March 14-15, 2016, the 11th GIF (4th Generation Nuclear Energy Systems International Forum) Supercritical Water Cooling Reactor Information Exchange Conference was held in Chengdu
in addition to supercritical water-cooling reactors. Sodium-cooled fast reactor is the main road of the China Academy of Atomic Energy Sciences. The experimental fast reactor was critically successful for the first time in 2010, and the demonstration project started in 2017, and is expected to be completed in 2023. In addition, the thorium-based molten salt reactor, which was particularly emphasized in the author's previous nuclear power series, is a project actively invested by the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. The experimental reactor in Wuwei, Gansu has been trial-operated in September this year. The high-temperature gas-cooled reactor is the leader of Tsinghua Nuclear Research Institute, and it is expected that the grid-connected power generation will be completed at Rongcheng's nuclear power plant by the end of the year.
However, although the development of nuclear power systems in my country over the years has been rapid, it also has the problem of lack of system management and integrators. Simply put, it is the technical route that is done in its own way, there is cooperation and competition between each other, but overall it is not as united and efficient as the state of unity and efficient dispatch and joint progress of enterprises, universities, and research institutions across the country during the 2009 Project, resulting in the dispersion of research forces and investment resources, and it is difficult to use good steel on the edge.
Information:
Cai Yi/Li Chunchi/Shi Kang. Review and Outlook on Nuclear Power Development: The Fourth Generation Nuclear Power Potential Unlimited (2021-11-05) https://stock.finance.sina.com.cn/stock/go.php/vReport_Show/kind/search/rptid/689445728937/index.phtml
"Memoirs of Liu Huaqing" (People's Liberation Army Press, 2004)
Road Wind. "New Fire: Going to Independent Innovation". Chapter 2 Cracking the Misty of Nuclear Power
Decrypting the Road of "Hualong No. 1" and "Jackie Chan" The world's first demonstration project "cold test" is imminent. (2019-04-16).http://www.sohu.com/a/308297409_740028.
"Past Years" (China Nuclear Power Research and Design Institute, 2006)
China competes for the fourth generation of nuclear energy (2014-06-12)https://www.cnecc.com/24/s/3183-8438-25222.html
