Study on Chinese Safety Infrastructure
Historically the Chinese nuclear programme has covered three main, interlinked areas; military weapons, nuclear submarines and research facilities. In the weapons programme there are obviously many aspects in which safety to a greater or lesser extent must be applied but of particular concern must be the RBMK type reactors which have been operating for many years. The first such reactor was partly constructed when the breakdown in relations occurred between the USSR and China in the late 1950's. design drawings, specifications and certain materials were removed from the site by the Russians when they left and the Chinese completed the plant and constructed others by the use of indigeneous resources. It is known that the graphite in these reactors certainly in the early plants is of inferior quality, has cracked and broken and caused distortion of the pressure tube hole liners.
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The nuclear submarine programme must have been subject to fairly high standards of safety. Of the ten vessels in the programme, three are said by the Chinese to be operational although they admit to considerable difficulties all overcome on the first. Broadly speaking, safety is dependant on design philosophy and quality and to an extent good quality will reflect in safety. Good quality is essential for reliability and there is little doubt that the Chinese would wish to avoid the loss of face attendant on a failure, of whatever type, on a submarine at sea. It would therefore seem reasonable to suppose that in terms of safety and quality they will have paralleled western practice in so far as this has been possible.
In the research area; research reactors and other facilities, it would appear from the information available that basic design and operational practices are similar to those adopted in other countries but without first hand knowledge of operational procedures a conclusive judgement is not possible. The first research reactor operated in China was supplied by the USSR and is similar to other reactors supplied to Egypt and Yugoslavia. Information from the operators of these reactors who have visited the Chinese reactor suggests that it is operated in a similar fashion to other research reactors around the world. A criticism which can be levelled at this type of reactor is the crudeness of its instrumentation but in a refurbishing and uprating exercise the Chinese are said to have improved this aspect.
Regarding the current and future safety philosophy being practiced, or, to be practiced, by the Chinese it is only possible to determine this by taking account of expressed intent and analysis of information released. Two projects are of particular interest in this respect, the first is the Quinshan nuclear power station and the second is Daya Bay. Quinshan is a 300 M.W. PWR plant being designed and constructed from "domestic resources". This claim is largely made for the benefit of the Chinese public and it is encouraging to note that high integrity safety items, demanding rigid quality control such as the pressure vessel, the primary pumps, the in-core instrumentation etc are being purchased from abroad. This action, of itself, does expose Chinese safety philosophy to established manufacturers and there is nothing to indicate from these activities that inferior safety