Supercritical water-cooled reactor pressure vessel concept

Safety system in a pressure vessel-type supercritical water-cooled reactor concept... 

The design concept of a light water cooled reactor operating at supercritical pressure was devised by one of this book s authors, Y. Oka [2, 3]. The reactor concept has been actively developed within his research group at the University of Tokyo [4-8]. It adopts a once-though coolant cycle without recirculation and a reactor pressure vessel (RPV) as shown in Fig. 1.5. 

The concept of SC-PWR, an indirect cycle supercritical light water cooled and moderated reactor with a reactor pressure vessel is described briefly in reference [5]. It is an 800 MWe two-loop supercritical pressure PWR as shown in Fig. B.l2 [3]. 

Two-circuit heat removal system with steam-water cycle of supercritical parameters is very difficult for realization, because super high pressure steam generator ( 250 atm) should be located inside the reactor vessel (BREST concept), and there is a real possibility of the core blockage by the products of water and heavy coolant interaction resulting in the core melt- down. Such incident took place in the propulsion reactor cooled by PbBi [7.11],... 

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