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Clean Hydrogen Partnership

Fire at a generator of a power plant

Event

Event ID
975
Quality
Description
A catastrophic failure of the low pressure turbine followed by fire and flooding severely damaged the generator.

The main turbine automatically tripped due to an erroneous mechanical over speed signal caused by high vibrations. The reactor, which was operating at 93 percent power, received an automatic scram signal triggered by the turbine trip. The high vibration was caused by catastrophic failure of the turbine blades. Ejected blade parts ripped through the turbine casing and severed condenser tubes and other piping.
Water from the fire suppression system and the damaged water lines accumulated in the basement of the turbine building and the adjacent radioactive waste processing building.
There was also a hydrogen fire in the generator's exciter due to breakage of generator sealing.
The reactor scrammed and the safety systems worked as expected.
Event Initiating system
Classification of the physical effects
Hydrogen Release and Ignition
Nature of the consequences
Fire (No additional details provided)
Macro-region
North America
Country
United States
Date
Root causes
Root CAUSE analysis
INITIATING CAUSE was high vibration and sudden failure of the turbine blades.

ROOT CAUSE(S)
Safety systems functioned properly. Some sources reported the lack of emergency procedure in case of water flooding. According the "List of nuclear power accidents by country" provided by Wikipedia, the main turbine experienced this major failure due to improper maintenance (ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_power_accidents_by_country (accessed November 2020).

Facility

Application
Power Plant
Sub-application
Nuclear power plant
Hydrogen supply chain stage
All components affected
steam turbine, generator, cooling system
Location type
Unknown
Location description
Industrial Area
Operational condition
Pre-event occurrences
According to a source, "The accident happened without any warning. "

Emergency & Consequences

Number of injured persons
0
Number of fatalities
0
Post-event summary
Repair cost are estimated at US$67 million. Radioactive releases were confined to noble gases in the steam within the turbine. (some sources report also release of contaminated water). Fire and flooding damaged other parts of the system, including exciter and condenser.
Plant was down for all of 1994 to repairing the turbine and clean the water contamination.

Lesson Learnt

Lesson Learnt
For a general on the risk of fire in power plant turbine buildings, see HIAD ID = 042.
Assuming that improper maintenance could have been one root cause, it confirm a general on the fact that regular maintenance and inspection could have helped to prevent the catastrophic turbine failure.

Event Nature

Release type
gas
Involved substances (% vol)
H2 100%
Presumed ignition source
Not reported

References

Reference & weblink

US Nuclear Regulation Commission Report of 4 January 1994 https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2005/ML20059E689.pdf (accessed November 2020)

NUREG-0090 Vol. 16, No. 4<br />
Report to Congress on Abnormal Occurrences

NRC report on ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT AND FINDING OF NO SIGNIFICANT IMPACT, July 29, 1994; <br />
https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML0207/ML020730333.pdf<br />
(accessed November 2020)<br />

This event is listed in From T. VIROLAINEN, J. MARTTILA, H. AULAMO, "TURRBINE GENERATORS AT VVER-440 NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS”, in "Upgrading of fire safety in nuclear power plants", IAEA-TECDOC-1014, Proceedings of an International Symposium, Vienna (Austria), 18-21 November 1997<br />
https://www.iaea.org/publications/5310/upgrading-of-fire-safety-in-nucl… <br />
(accessed July 2024)

JRC assessment