RIO GREGGY D.

RAÑIN CHEM131 BSEE-1

CHEMLECTURE(NUCLEAR REACTORS/POWERPLANTS)
I.TYPES
Pressurised Heavy Water Reactor
*The PHWR reactor design has been developed since the 1950s in Canada as the CANDU, and
from 1980s also in India. PHWRs generally use natural uranium (0.7% U-235) oxide as fuel, hence
needs a more efficient moderator, in this case heavy water (D 2O).** The PHWR produces more
energy per kilogram of mined uranium than other designs, but also produces a much larger
amount of used fuel per unit output.
Advanced Gas Cooler Reactor
*These are the second generation of British gas-cooled reactors, using graphite moderator and
carbon dioxide as primary coolant. The fuel is uranium oxide pellets, enriched to 2.5-3.5%, in
stainless steel tubes. The carbon dioxide circulates through the core, reaching 650°C and then
past steam generator tubes outside it, but still inside the concrete and steel pressure vessel
(hence 'integral' design). Control rods penetrate the moderator and a secondary shutdown
system involves injecting nitrogen to the coolant
Pressurised Water Reactor
*This is the most common type, with over 280 operable reactors for power generation and
several hundred more employed for naval propulsion. The design of PWRs originated as
a submarine power plant. PWRs use ordinary water as both coolant and moderator. The design
is distinguished by having a primary cooling circuit which flows through the core of the reactor
under very high pressure, and a secondary circuit in which steam is generated to drive the
turbine. In Russia these are known as VVER types – water-moderated and -cooled.
Boling Water Reactor
*This design has many similarities to the PWR, except that there is only a single circuit in which
the water is at lower pressure (about 75 times atmospheric pressure) so that it boils in the core
at about 285°C. The reactor is designed to operate with 12-15% of the water in the top part of
the core as steam, and hence with less moderating effect and thus efficiency there. BWR units
can operate in load-following mode more readily then PWRs.
Light water graphite-moderated reactor (RBMK)
*This is a Soviet design, developed from plutonium production reactors. It employs long (7 metre)
vertical pressure tubes running through graphite moderator, and is cooled by water, which is
allowed to boil in the core at 290°C, at about 6.9 MPa, much as in a BWR. Fuel is low-enriched
uranium oxide made up into fuel assemblies 3.5 metres long. With moderation largely due to the
fixed graphite, excess boiling simply reduces the cooling and neutron absorbtion without
inhibiting the fission reaction, and a positive feedback problem can arise, which is why they have
never been built outside the Soviet Union. See appendix on RBMK Reactors for more detail.
Fast Neutron Reactors (FNR)
*Some reactors (only one in commercial service) do not have a moderator and utilise fast
neutrons, generating power from plutonium while making more of it from the U-238 isotope in
or around the fuel. While they get more than 60 times as much energy from the original uranium
compared with the normal reactors, they are expensive to build. Further development of them
is likely in the next decade, and the main designs expected to be built in two decades are FNRs.
If they are configured to produce more fissile material (plutonium) than they consume they are
called fast breeder reactors (FBR). See also Fast Neutron Reactors and Small Reactors papers.
Floating nuclear power plants
*Apart from over 200 nuclear reactors powering various kinds of ships, Rosatom in Russia has set
up a subsidiary to supply floating nuclear power plants ranging in size from 70 to 600 MWe. These
will be mounted in pairs on a large barge, which will be permanently moored where it is needed
to supply power and possibly some desalination to a shore settlement or industrial complex. The
first has two 40 MWe reactors based on those in icebreakers and will operate at a remote site in
Siberia. Electricity cost is expected to be much lower than from present alternatives.

II.PARTS
Fuel. Uranium is the basic fuel. Usually pellets of uranium oxide (UO2) are arranged in tubes to
form fuel rods. The rods are arranged into fuel assemblies in the reactor core.* In a 1000 MWe
class PWR there might be 51,000 fuel rods with over 18 million pellets.* In a new reactor with
new fuel a neutron source is needed to get the reaction going. Usually this is beryllium mixed
with polonium, radium or other alpha-emitter. Alpha particles from the decay cause a release of
neutrons from the beryllium as it turns to carbon-12. Restarting a reactor with some used fuel
may not require this, as there may be enough neutrons to achieve criticality when control rods
are removed.

Moderator. Material in the core which slows down the neutrons released from fission so that
they cause more fission. It is usually water, but may be heavy water or graphite.
Control rods. These are made with neutron-absorbing material such as cadmium, hafnium or
boron, and are inserted or withdrawn from the core to control the rate of reaction, or to halt it.*
In some PWR reactors, special control rods are used to enable the core to sustain a low level of
power efficiently. (Secondary control systems involve other neutron absorbers, usually boron in
the coolant – its concentration can be adjusted over time as the fuel burns up.) PWR control rods
are inserted from the top, BWR cruciform blades from the bottom of the core.
* In fission, most of the neutrons are released promptly, but some are delayed. These are crucial
in enabling a chain reacting system (or reactor) to be controllable and to be able to be held
precisely critical.
Coolant. A fluid circulating through the core so as to transfer the heat from it. In light water
reactors the water moderator functions also as primary coolant. Except in BWRs, there is
secondary coolant circuit where the water becomes steam. (See also later section on primary
coolant characteristics.) A PWR has two to four primary coolant loops with pumps, driven either
by steam or electricity – China’s Hualong One design has three, each driven by a 6.6 MW electric
motor, with each pump set weighing 110 tonnes.
Pressure vessel or pressure tubes. Usually a robust steel vessel containing the reactor core and
moderator/coolant, but it may be a series of tubes holding the fuel and conveying the coolant
through the surrounding moderator.
Steam generator. Part of the cooling system of pressurised water reactors (PWR & PHWR) where
the high-pressure primary coolant bringing heat from the reactor is used to make steam for the
turbine, in a secondary circuit. Essentially a heat exchanger like a motor car radiator.* Reactors
have up to six 'loops', each with a steam generator. Since 1980 over 110 PWR reactors have had
their steam generators replaced after 20-30 years service, 57 of these in USA.
* These are large heat exchangers for transferring heat from one fluid to another – here from
high-pressure primary circuit in PWR to secondary circuit where water turns to steam. Each
structure weighs up to 800 tonnes and contains from 300 to 16,000 tubes about 2 cm diameter
for the primary coolant, which is radioactive due to nitrogen-16 (N-16, formed by neutron
bombardment of oxygen, with half-life of 7 seconds). The secondary water must flow through
the support structures for the tubes. The whole thing needs to be designed so that the tubes
don't vibrate and fret, operated so that deposits do not build up to impede the flow, and
maintained chemically to avoid corrosion. Tubes which fail and leak are plugged, and surplus
capacity is designed to allow for this. Leaks can be detected by monitoring N-16 levels in the
steam as it leaves the steam generator.
Containment. The structure around the reactor and associated steam generators which is
designed to protect it from outside intrusion and to protect those outside from the effects of
radiation in case of any serious malfunction inside. It is typically a metre-thick concrete and steel
structure
III.OPERATION
A nuclear reactor produces and controls the release of energy from splitting the atoms of
certain elements. In a nuclear power reactor, the energy released is used as heat to make steam
to generate electricity. (In a research reactor the main purpose is to utilise the actual neutrons
produced in the core. In most naval reactors, steam drives a turbine directly for propulsion.)
The principles for using nuclear power to produce electricity are the same for most types of
reactor. The energy released from continuous fission of the atoms of the fuel is harnessed as heat
in either a gas or water, and is used to produce steam. The steam is used to drive the turbines
which produce electricity (as in most fossil fuel plants).
The world's first nuclear reactors operated naturally in a uranium deposit about two billion
years ago. These were in rich uranium orebodies and moderated by percolating rainwater. The
17 known at Oklo in west Africa, each less than 100 kW thermal, together consumed about six
tonnes of that uranium. It is assumed that these were not unique worldwide.
Today, reactors derived from designs originally developed for propelling submarines and large
naval ships generate about 85% of the world's nuclear electricity. The main design is the
pressurised water reactor (PWR) which has water at over 300°C under pressure in its primary
cooling/heat transfer circuit, and generates steam in a secondary circuit. The less numerous
boiling water reactor (BWR) makes steam in the primary circuit above the reactor core, at similar
temperatures and pressure. Both types use water as both coolant and moderator, to slow
neutrons. Since water normally boils at 100°C, they have robust steel pressure vessels or tubes
to enable the higher operating temperature. (Another type uses heavy water, with deuterium
atoms, as moderator. Hence the term ‘light water’ is used to differentiate.)

Sources:
Nuclear Reactors | Nuclear Power Plant | Nuclear Reactor Technology. (n.d.). Retrieved from
https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-power-
reactors/nuclear-power-reactors.aspx