BARC developed 190 MW reactor for INS Aridaman and no nuke power for INS Vishal

[Kinetic]

BARC has successfully developed a 190 Megawatt (MW) reactor for India’s fleet of four-to-six nuclear propelled, nuclear missile carrying submarines, of which the first – INS Arihant – has already been commissioned. However, INS Vishal would require a reactor capable of generating at least 500-550 MW. That means developing a brand new, miniaturised reactor, ruggedized against a marine environment.

Nor is such a 550 MW reactor in the development pipeline, because of a dispute over who will pay the bill. Says an indignant navy admiral: “BARC wants us to place a ‘developmental contract’ to fund the reactor’s development. Why should we do that?”


Full article:

http://ajaishukla.blogspot.in/2017/10/navy-drops-cherished-dream-of-nuclear.html

 

[Kinetic]

Development of a 190 MW reactor for submarine is a technological breakthrough in India!!! I donot know why they are not going for two of this on INS Vishal?

 

[Chhatrapati]

@Kinetic Long time.

 

[Indika]

“BARC wants us to place a ‘developmental contract’ to fund the reactor’s development. Why should we do that?”

so who is the end user ? if not the navy. Navy should instead get it from open market if it is available.

 

[Hyperion]

Such reactors are holy grail of naval power, they are to submarines and carriers, what jet engine is to modern day aircraft's. In layman's terminology, almost impossible to develop on your own (specially the efficient ones), unless you have a trillion dollar budget.

Buying them on the open market is not as simple as it sounds either.

so who is the end user ? if not the navy. Navy should instead get it from open market if it is available.

 

[Indika]

Buying them on the open market is not as simple as it sounds either.

I know, thats why they should fund the program or share the cost. Why would BARC spend money to develop a miniaturized versions when they are mostly researching and developing civilian reactors?
Defence guys go around splurging tonnes of money on foreign acquisition but dont bother spending money at home for R&D. Either they dont care or need to be given some kickbacks.

 

[Kinetic]

so who is the end user ? if not the navy. Navy should instead get it from open market if it is available.

Navy will be the only user, they need to fund it.

 

[Kinetic]

@Kinetic Long time.

yes bro... busy with daily life, its weekend... so doing time pass here...

 

[anant_s]

BARC wants us to place a ‘developmental contract’ to fund the reactor’s development. Why should we do that?”

This is strange.
Even after WW2, all USN propulsion reactors designed and developed by Knolls Naval Labs were funded by DOE and US Navy.
The work of Rear Admiral Rickover in this project is well respected till date.

(Courtesy: Proving the Principle, Susan M Stacy).

Guess Government needs to put its foot down and allocate budget for the project from next years Defence budget

In layman's terminology, almost impossible to develop on your own

with all due respect sir, they are not.
The biggest trouble that comes from miniaturizing high energy flux systems, is thermal ageing mechanisms which behave non linearly (meaning these designs cannot be extrapolated from small flux designs). Here what is required is change in materials which consume greatest part of research resources. This brings second set of issue of machining and fabrication (welding procedures and heat treatment).
However a lot of such research is already being done for Super Critical Thermal power plants (which too operate at very high thermal flux) and Fast Breeder Reactors (similar Fast neutron flux). So this is doable in current scenario provided there remains a demand for such final product translating into atleast 3-4 ACs in future.
Other systems such as Nuclear Steam Supply System are available and hence no major issues there.