EyesOnSci | Nuclear power project designer dedicates almost 40 years to reactor design

CHENGDU, May 31 (Xinhua) -- Zhong Yuanzhang was the deputy chief designer of Hualong One nuclear power project of the Nuclear Power Institute of China in Chengdu, southwest China's Sichuan Province. Since he graduated from Chengdu University of Science and Technology (now Sichuan University) as a chemical engineering major student in 1986, Zhong has been engaged in reactor structure design and participated in the R&D of more than half of China's nuclear power plants.

Zhong's first job after graduation was to participate in the R&D of a kind of key steel material for reactor pressure vessels (RPVs). 

RPV is a large steel vessel containing the reactor core, cooling water, and generated steam, which requires high reliability to withstand high temperatures and high pressures. It makes the RPV the most critical pressure boundary in the nuclear power plant.

The 177 fuel assemblies of Hualong One's reactor core are installed in the RPV. "The whole R&D, design, production, and testing took nearly two decades, and we successfully developed the steel material for Hualong One's RPV, realizing the localization of the 'heart' of the reactor," said Zhong.

There are tens of thousands of parts in the Hualong One reactor, and the R&D of a mere part can be as short as one or two years and as long as more than ten years, which requires a lot of hard work from the researchers. Thanks to them, China's nuclear power development has seen stable growth. Zhong was retired and now has been rehired, and continues to do follow-up research on Hualong One.