History of ŠKODA's involvement in the nuclear power industry
The origins and history of ŠKODA´s involvement in the nuclear energy industry
The beginning of the 1950s brought about an unexpected international development in the nuclear field. At the end of 1953, the Soviet and American governments agreed to organize international cooperation regarding the utilization of nuclear power for peaceful purposes. The programme was called “Atoms for Peace”, and was followed by further developments that had a significant impact on the development of nuclear engineering worldwide as well as at Škoda in Pilsen. In 1954, a Plenary Session of United Nations came up with a plan to hold the first international atomic conference in Geneva in 1955. However, prior to this conference, the Soviet government had offered to its allies cooperation in the field of peaceful utilization of nuclear power. In 1955, the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia signed a treaty according to which, within the record-breaking period of two years, the very first research reactor with a power output of 2000 kW was constructed and commissioned at Řež; followed by a cyclotron of 25 MeV. Even now, we are still amazed by the speed at which nuclear science and technology were pioneered during this first stage. In 1955, a decision was taken to build the Institute of Nuclear Physics at Řež outside Prague. In 1956, the Faculty of Technical and Nuclear Physics was founded and opened.
In March 1956, less then a year after the treaty on cooperation for the peaceful utilization of nuclear power was signed, the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia concluded another treaty. This time it was a cooperation treaty to construct the first Czechoslovak A-1 nuclear power plant, with a heavy water reactor cooled by CO2. Based on this treaty, teams of specialists were spontaneously formed in those Czechoslovak companies and institutions that were somehow associated with the nuclear energy industry. There were many factors why the Škoda Works became the leader during the construction of the first Czechoslovak A-1 nuclear power plant. This was mainly due to its long-term experience in energy engineering; its vast scientific-technical base but most of all, it was the foresight and determination of Josef Hauer, the head engineer at the Škoda Works in Pilsen. In autumn 1957, the team of experts at the Škoda Works had more then a hundred members, many of whom were sent to workplaces in the USSR to cooperate with scientists who were in charge of the technical project for the actual reactor, as well as the primary part of the A-1 power plant.
However, after several months, it became apparent that the original thinking about the scale of the Soviet involvement on the A-1 power plant, which was instrumental to the conclusion of the cooperation contract on the A-1 NPP construction, including its commissioning in 1960, was not realistic. Many Czechoslovak and Russian experts worked in the USSR on the designated A-1 Technical Project Expertise, which came to the conclusion that our participation on the project would not only mean the technological familiarization with the technical and production documents, but would also require extensive scientific-technical and research-developmental work. This resulted in the increase in both the time and the financial scope of the project, and it became necessary to build a specialized scientific-technical base. All these circumstances influenced the leading bodies of the Czechoslovak state, which soon afterwards lost their original enthusiasm for nuclear power. In February 1958, Josef Hauer managed to secure the Škoda nuclear team and its associated groups in energy industry from dismissal. However, this required his personal intervention in the form of visiting the Prime Minister as well as the General Secretary of the Central Committee of Czechoslovak Communist Party.
Pic. 1: The manufacture of the spherical cap for
the pressure vessel bottom at the A-1 NPP
In Czechoslovakia, the work on the A-1 project continued with increasing intensity. To help find all the answers, it became necessary to widen the scientific and industrial structure by setting up industrial testing rooms, and the provision of both specialized secondary and higher education as well. New scientific disciplines had to be established, i.e. tensometry at high temperatures, spatial photoelasticimetry, the research into the brittle solidity of thick-walled vessels and of radiation damage to structural materials and insulators. Moreover, the new techniques had to be developed, for example: vacuum remelting of steel, welding of steel and avial alloy of extreme thickness, and the non-destructive quality assurance control, mainly for welded joints.
It became a standard procedure to verify important components by testing prototypes in 1:1 scale under nominal operating conditions of pressure, temperature and environment. This approach was used for the fuel assemblies, regulatory mechanisms, but also for the lid of the reactor pressure vessel. The very first big analogous as well as automatic digital computers in Czechoslovakia were installed to find solutions to problems in nuclear engineering. Unprecedented was the scope of cooperation between industry and our scientific institutions as well as foreign ones.
The A-1 NPP was still under construction and planned to be commissioned in 1972, when we learned about new global awareness regarding nuclear energy. This scientific information was not available in 1956, when the heavy water reactor was selected for the A-1 NPP. As a result, in 1970, the decision was made to apply the new VVER type in the construction of nuclear power plants in Czechoslovakia.
Pic. 2: A-1 NPP – Refuelling machine in the
reactor room
After the first oil crisis, it became obvious that the Soviet nuclear engineering production capacities could not satisfy the increasing demand at home as well as abroad. Therefore, in 1974, the USSR approached Czechoslovakia to participate in the manufacturing of sets of nuclear equipment for the production of steam. By 1980, this equipment had been installed at five VVER-440/V-213 units, and after the commissioning of the first VVER-1000 unit, it was further installed at all the VVER-440/V-213-type NPPs that were under construction. Later, this division of manufacture was applied to the VVER-1000 type as well. Such a volume of nuclear equipment could not be manufactured at standard engineering plants in those days. This explains why in the 1970s, engineering production capacities in Czechoslovakia were increased, and five billion crowns were invested into special production facilities. This investment included the Reactor Hall at the Škoda Works as well as the manufacture of regulatory mechanisms at the Bolevec plant.
Karel WAGNER, ŠKODA JS a.s.