The broadest modernization and life extension program so far at the Metsamor nuclear plant in Armenia will be undertaken in 2021, Russian state nuclear company Rosatom said in an email March 23. The scheduled repair and maintenance outage for Metsamor-2 will last 141 days, during which the unit's ongoing modernization will be completed and the thermal annealing of the reactor pressure vessel, or RPV, will be undertaken, Rosatom said. During this procedure, the RPV will be heated to 475 degrees C using an annealer, maintained at this temperature for 150 hours, and cooled slowly. This procedure is designed to restore the operational characteristics of the reactor's metal to up to 85% of its initial state, thereby increasing the unit's operational lifespan, Rosatom said.
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