Nuclear reactor pressurized water reactors

This appendix provides additional materials (schematics, layouts, T—s diagrams, basic parameters, and photos) on advanced thermal (combined cycle and supercritical pressure Rankine steam turbine cycle) power plants and nuclear power plants with modern nuclear power reactors [pressurized water reactors (PWRs), boiling water reactors (BWRs), pressurized heavy water reactors (PHWRs), advanced gas-cooled reactors (AGRs), gas-cooled reactors (OCRs), light water-cooled graphitemoderated reactors (LGRs) (RBMKs and EGPs), and liquid metal fast-breeder reactors (LMFBRs) (BN-600 and BN-800)]. 

In service inspections of French nuclear Pressure Water Reactor (PWR) vessels are carried out automatically in complete immersion from the inside by means of ultrasonic focused probes working in the pulse echo mode. Concern has been expressed about the capabilities of performing non destructive evaluation of the Outer Surface Defects (OSD), i.e. defects located in the vicinity of the outer surface of the inspected components. OSD are insonified by both a "direct" field that passes through the inner surface (water/steel) of the component containing the defect and a "secondary" field reflected from the outer surface. Consequently, the Bscan images, containing the signatures of such defects, are complicated and their interpretation is a difficult task. 

Fig. 1. Pressurized water reactor (PWR) coolant system having U-tube steam generators typical of the 3—4 loops in nuclear power plants. PWR plants having once-through steam generators contain two reactor coolant pump-steam generator loops. CVCS = chemical and volume-control system.

Because boron compounds are good absorbers of thermal neutrons, owing to isotope B, the nuclear industry has developed many appHcations. High putity bode acid is added to the cooling water used in high pressure water reactors (see Nuclearreactors). 

The DOE N-Reactor is one of the plutonium production reactors located on the Hanford Reservation near Richland, Washington. It is graphite moderated, pressurized water reactors that in addition to production of special nuclear materials also provided steam to turbine generators owned by the Washington Public Power Supply System for electric power production. It began op ition in 1 is put into standby status in 1988 and closed because of similarities to Chernobyl. 

The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI 1981) conducted a survey of transuranic radionuclides in the terrestrial environs of nuclear power plants in the United States in 1978-1979. The plants included two pressurized water reactors (PWRs) and two BWRs that were of modem design and had been in operation at least 3 years. The 241 Am air concentrations around all of the power plants were extremely low and indistinguishable from fallout background... 

Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) A type of nuclear power reactor that uses ordinary water as both the coolant and the neutron moderator. The heat produced is transferred to a secondary coolant which is subsequently boiled to produce steam for power generation. 

France owns a major nuclear power plant program for electricity production (more than 70% of total production). Both reactors for civil and defence programs are pressurized water reactors, with similar fissile materials. 

M. Salter-Williams, Mass Transport of Magnetite in Pressurized Water Reactor Primary Circuits, M.S. Thesis, Department Nuclear Eng., Penn State University, 2000. 

In addition to understanding the interaction of radiation with water, the nuclear industry must obviously also take into account the excess production of molecular hydrogen and hydrogen peroxide, and control this excess in order to avoid explosive conditions and corrosion of the water circuitries. Due to the working conditions of the current reactors (T > 310 °C, P > 100 atm in Pressurized Water Reactor, PWR), it is mandatory to predict the evolution ofthe chemistry when submitted to high temperature and pressure. Nevertheless, a few experiments have shown that the linear Arrhenius law model is not applicable at temperatures above 250 °C. Hydrogen production overestimates have been necessary in... 

Figure 13.19 Water-dilution volumes for radionuclides in spent-fuel reprocessing wastes formed by operating a l-GW( -) pressurized-water reactor for one year, plotted as a function of decay time. After J. Choi and H. Pigford, Water dilution volumes for high-level wastes, ANS Transactions 39, p. 176. Copyright 1981 by the American Nuclear Society,...

Calculations were made for a thermal-neutron flux of 3.5 X 10 /(cm s), considered representative of a 1060-MWe pressurized-water reactor similar to one manufactured by Westinghouse for the Donald C. Cook Nuclear Plant [A1 ]. 

Rl. Rieck, T. A. The Effect of Refueling Dedsions and Engineering Constraints on the Fuel Management for a Pressurized Water Reactor, thesis submitted to the Department of Nuclear Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass., in partial fulfillment of requirements for the Ph.D. degree, 1974. 

To relate these resource estimates to nuclear electric generation, it may be noted that a 1000-MWe pressurized-water reactor operating at 80 percent capacity factor without recycle, on uranium enriched to 3.3 w/o (weight percent) U in an enrichment plant stripping natural uranium to 0.3 w/o U, consumes around 200 MT of uranium per year. Thus the U.S. resource estimate of 1758 thousand MT available at less than 50/lb UgOg would keep a 300,000-MWe nuclear power industry in fuel for... 

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