[3] Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) set up a large infrastructure to facilitate the design and development of these advanced heavy water reactors.
Things to be included range from materials technologies, critical components, reactor physics, and safety analysis.
This allows a much larger share of the original material to be used without the need for fast breeder reactors and while producing orders of magnitude less minor actinides.
The proposed design of the AHWR is that of a heavy-water-moderated nuclear power reactor that will be the next generation of the PHWR type.
It is being developed at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), in Mumbai, India and aims to meet the objectives of using thorium fuel cycles for commercial power generation.
The AHWR is a vertical pressure tube type reactor cooled by boiling light water under natural circulation.
The reactor physics design is tuned to maximise the use of thorium based fuel, by achieving a slightly negative void coefficient.
The core configuration lends itself to considerable flexibility and several feasible solutions, including those not requiring the use of amorphous carbon based reflectors, are possible without any changes in reactor structure.
The AHWR at standard is set to be a closed nuclear fuel cycle because this will lead to reduction in radio-toxicity.
AFFF is the only nuclear fuel production facility in the world which has dealt with uranium, plutonium and thorium.
The Defence in Depth is a method used in nuclear facilities to acquire the most effective practice of radioactive containment.
The AWHR has acquired the Defense in Depth process which is used in reactors adopting provisions and required equipment in order to retain the radioactivity within the core.
The Defense in Depth method establishes procedures that must be followed in order to reduce human error incidents and machine malfunctions.