Nuclear Power Plant Safety Systems and Reactor Pressure Vessel

Because a nuclear explosion in a nuclear power plant is impossible due to the low fuel enrichment, the worst conceivable accident is a severe loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA), leading to a core meltdown. Although the nuclear fission and fusion process would be immediately stopped by a control rod insertion, the radioactive fission products would continue to generate decay heat in the fuel. Thus, a LOCA producing core uncovering could cause the fuel to melt. In the most extreme case, a molten mass would fall to the bottom of the reactor, melting through the reactor pressure vessel and the underlying concrete, and eventually coming to rest about 6.1 m (20 ft) underground. (more…)

Nuclear Power And World Electricity Generation

Sir Arthur Eddington’s general address on subatomic energy at the 1930 World Power Conference in Berlin stirred the imagination of every scientist and engineer present. The challenge was clear: find a practical means of accessing, controlling, and using the enormous energy locked in the atom as predicted by Einstein’s remarkable mass–energy relation, E=mc2. On December 2, 1942, Enrico Fermi transformed Eddington’s visionary challenge into reality by producing the world’s first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear reactor, Chicago Pile 1. Six decades later, nuclear energy now produces 16% of the world’s electrical power. (more…)

Fusion Reactor Steel Development for ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor)

ITMA Foundation, a group of researchers formed by Javier Belzunce, José Manuel Artimez, Ana Moran and Ruben Coto, has developed the first quality steel with a potential application as structural material in future nuclear fusion reactor (ITER ), whose design is an ambitious project that could facilitate future production of energy from hydrogen. (more…)

Pressurized Water Reactor & Boiling Water Reactor

Pressurized Water Reactor

Nuclear power plants have many different designs and shapes. Early technology restrictions in nuclear power plants make huge plants with the capability to produce the greatest amount of power possible. But with more recent technology, nuclear plants size are smaller , making them less costly and easier to build. But despite their many technical and engineering differences, nuclear reactors come in two basic types: pressurized water reactor systems and boiling water reactor systems. (more…)