NIKIET Dollezhal - Naval Reactors

JSC "Order of Lenin Research and Design Institute of Energy Engineering named after N. A. Dollezhal" (NIKIET) is one of the largest centers for the development of nuclear engineering and technology in Russia. It develops reactors for nuclear power plants, ship and other nuclear power and propulsion systems, research reactors, creates integrated automated control systems. He conducts research in reactor physics, thermal physics, hydrodynamics, materials science, nuclear, radiation and environmental safety of nuclear reactors, optimization of nuclear reactor core areas, life management and decommissioning of nuclear installations. The Institute’s employees designed: a reactor installation for the first Soviet nuclear submarine, a water-graphite channel reactor for the world's first nuclear power plant in Obninsk, the first dual-purpose power reactor for the Siberian NPP, and the first channel reactor with nuclear superheating for the Beloyarsk nuclear power plant.

Since the beginning of the 1950s, NIKIET (in those years, NII-8) was the lead contractor for the design of ship steam generating units, the manufacture and supply of their equipment for the facilities of the Navy of the USSR and the Russian Federation, as well as author support for their operation, repair and disposal.

September 9, 1952 I.V. Stalin signed Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on the creation of a nuclear submarine. In 1952, a research institute was organized on the basis of this design bureau, in which a reactor installation for the first Soviet nuclear submarin. According to the project developed at NII-8, a nuclear power plant (NPP) was created for the Lenin Komsomol, the first atomic submarine in the USSR. In the following years, using this type of nuclear power plant, more than 50 nuclear submarines of various types (multipurpose, with cruise and ballistic missiles) were built and successfully operated.

Since the early 1950s, NIKIET has been the lead developer of ship-based steam generating systems for the Navy's nuclear submarines. For the first domestic submarine K-3 “Leninsky Komsomol”, the institute developed a water-water reactor. The power plant provided the ship with a cruising speed of up to 25 knots, a duration of submerged diving - up to 60 days. The submarine served for almost 30 years. Subsequently, using nuclear installations of this type, more than 50 submarines were built.

I.V. Stalin on September 9, 1952 signed the decicion about design and construction of object 627 - the first in the USSR nuclear submarine. By the same decree to carry out design, experienced and scientific research work on nuclear energy installation (NPP) for nuclear submarines based on SKB-5 and other divisions, NIIkhimmash created Special Research Institute 8 - NII-8. Director snd chief designer of nuclear power was N.A.Dollezhal, chief designer of nuclear submarine hull was V. N. Peregudov, scientific management of all nuclear work on the ship was entrusted to A.P. Alexandrovt. So at the institute (formed by the same principles as NIIkhimmash), the practical work began in the field of ship reactor engineering. Before that time in the hydro sector, then in SKB-5, as in a number of other organizations, small groups of enthusiasts searched for the use of nuclear energy for submarine installations. The new energy source promised the possibility of creating a “single” engine body that worked equally efficiently both above and under water. The huge energy intensity of nuclear fuel, the independence of the reactor from external environment allowed giving boats performance not seen before. Project managers are by October-November 1952 determined the appearance of the future ship, structure and characteristics of theenergy installation. In January 1953 they produced Pre-draft projects of nuclear submarines and nuclear power plants. Such rapid rates of work were dictated by the need to catch up with the United States, which was 4–5 years ahead of the USSR in creating the first nuclear submarine. The reactor plant was originally designedhid in NII-8 in several versions. After 3.5 years from the start of design inMarch 1956, the city of Obninsk launched full-scale NPP ground stand, and in December 1958 after state trials commission signs acceptance certificate operation of Project 627 nuclear submarines. “The team created by Dollezhal consisted of a small number of employees who had already worked with him on an industrial reactor - the accumulator of weapons-grade plutonium, and a large group of university graduates,” recalls student of the NIKIET founder, laboratory head Georgy Grechko. “Many of the employees fought. They knew the price of victory, and the main thing in life for them was creative work. This team very quickly solved an incredibly difficult task - created a power plant for the first submarine. It was a real miracle. ”

Construction began of a large series of first-generation submarines, including including ballistic and cruise missiles. Their mass commissioning qualitatively changesnil potential of the Soviet naval forces. The VM reactor plant designs and improved main BM-A identified the main approaches principles of formation and structure of nuclear energy sources for subsequent use by the fleet.

Veterans remember that creative mood in which this work took place, the enthusiasm with which both already experienced and young designers moved their ideas, mutual discussions of their pros and cons, big and small disputes, the judges in whom they had to be co-drivers and the chief designer. In working with employees, the ship’s crew and engineers working at NII-8, the Navy was developing in SKB-43 a nuclear submarine of project 639. Institute designers worked on several different installation options for loop circuits, device reactors, equipment layouts. As a result, in preference design materials was given to the installation under the index "VK". By its layout it was the first block reactor and main equipment was carried in a whole series of radically new ones. In comparison with the installation of VM-A, technical solutions, significantly improved physical, hydraulic, weight and size characteristics, increasing her safety. Unfortunately, the nuclear submarine project was not implemented.

In 1959-1961, NIKIET developed the project for the most powerful V-5 block steam generating unit for that time for Project 661 nuclear submarines. The K-162 submarine set a world record for underwater speed (45 knots), which has not been surpassed so far.

In the 1960s, for the first time in world shipbuilding, the Institute created an auxiliary single-loop unit VAU-6 with a boiling-type reactor for project 651E diesel-electric submarines.

In 1970, NIKIET designed the first monoblock reactor installation MBU. Specialists proposed the design of a steam generating unit, containing in one case all the main equipment of the primary circuit: the core, steam generator, circulation pumps, a filter and a partial pressure compensator. In 1980–2000, a series of atomic submarines with reactors of this type was built; they are still in operation.

NIKIET is a pioneer in the USSR and the Russian Federation in creating innovative integrated-type steam generating units for naval facilities, which are still successfully operating in Russia.

NIKIET celebrated its 65th anniversary in 2017. Confidence that the impossible is possible, employees inherited from the founder of the institute, Nikolai Dollezhal. Experience reinforces professional ambitions: NIKIET has solved and is addressing many tasks of national importance.

The history of NIKIET is closely connected with the history of the nuclear submarine fleet. “65 years ago, a resolution was issued by the Council of Ministers of the USSR on the design of the first submarine with a nuclear reactor, and the era of submarine nuclear shipbuilding began,” Director General Andrei Kaplienko said at the NIKIET anniversary celebration. “Our institute developed a draft nuclear power plant.”

“Your institute has given us, submariners, practically unlimited possibilities,” said the head of the main deep-water research department of the RF Ministry of Defense, Vice-Admiral Aleksey Burilichev. “After all, the main thing for any moving object is energy. If there is energy, any task will be solved. You gave energy to our submarines. ”

Today NIKIET is the lead contractor for both nuclear and radiation safety in the disposal of nuclear submarines and surface ships of the Navy, as well as for the environmental rehabilitation of radiation hazardous facilities.