The Indian Pressurized Water Reactor-900 (IPWR-900) is a class of pressurized water reactors being designed by the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) in partnership with the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited to supplement the Indian three-stage nuclear power programme.
[1] To support the industrial capacity to fabricate the large forgings for a reactor pressure vessel, a heavy forge unit has been set up as a joint venture by the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) and Indian engineering conglomerate Larsen & Toubro's subsidiary L&T Special Steels and Heavy Forgings Limited in Hazira, Gujarat.
The control rods have been designed to provide negative reactivity coefficients with a shutdown margin of 10 mk at hot zero power state for a prolonged time.
[6] IPWR utilises Gadolinium(Gd) compound Gd2O3(Gadolinia) as a neutron absorber for suppression of initial reactivity which is a prominent feature of modern PWR designs including EPR and AP1000.
The use of Gd reduces concentration of dissolved boron required at the beginning of the fuel cycle and helps keep the coolant temperature coefficient of reactivity sufficiently negative in all operating conditions.