Refueling Outage Length

The ABWR's operating cycle is 18 months with capability up to 24 months. The refueling outages for these cycle lengths is 43 days. These outages lengths assume that there is only normal maintenance work and no major turbine generator work. A number of design features speed up the outage: an automated fuel movement platform, a "minimum shuffle" core loading strategy, fewer control rod drive removals, automated handling of FMCRDs and RIPs, and automated startup times, all of which improve the availability factor by about 2.5%.

  • ABWR Performance Characteristics