Types of nuclear reactors

Nuclear research reactors - use neutrons generated during nuclear fission reactions to
produce radioisotopes that are going to be used in other applications of nuclear energy or
materials for studies.
Nuclear power reactors. - These reactors are based on the use of the thermal energy generated
in the fission reactions. The main and most known application of this type of reactor is to
generate electricity in nuclear power plants .

Pressurized water reactor (PWR)

- the most used in the world.

-This nuclear reactor uses enriched uranium as oxide form as nuclear fuel.

The moderator and coolant used can be water or graphite.

- The reactor is based on the principle that the water under high pressures can evaporate without
reaching the boiling point, ie, at temperatures greater than 100 ° C.

Boiling water reactor (BWR)

-The boiling water reactor is also used frequently. Has been developed mainly in the United
States, Sweden and RF German.
In this reactor, water is used as coolant and moderator.
The nuclear fuel is enriched uranium in oxide form and that facilitates the generation of nuclear
fission.
The thermal energy generated by the chain reaction is used to boil water.

Natural uranium reactor, gas-graphite (GCR)

-this type of nuclear reactor uses natural uranium in the form of metal fuel. The fuel is
introduced into tube of a magnesium alloy called Magnox.
The moderator used is graphite and the refrigerator is gas, carbon dioxide.

Advanced Gas Reactor (AGR)

-It has developed in the UK from the natural uranium-graphite-gas nuclear reactor.

The main changes are that the nuclear fuel, in the form of enriched uranium oxide, is introduced
into stainless steel tubes and that the vessel, made of pre-stressed concrete, contains heat
exchangers inside.

Gas-cooled reactor at elevated temperature (HTGCR)

-This nuclear reactor is a further evolution of gas-cooled nuclear reactors . Developed in R.F.
German, UK and US.
 Helium is replaced by carbon dioxide as a refrigerant.
 The ceramic fuel is used instead of metal fuel.
 The gas temperatures which it works are much higher.

Heavy water reactor (HWR) – PHWR/CANDU

-The fuel used is natural uranium in oxide form, which is inserted in zirconium alloy tubes.
Its main feature is the use of heavy water as moderator and coolant.
Fast breeder reactor (FBR)

- don't use moderator

- most of the fissions produced are produced by fast neutrons.
The reactor core consists of a fissile area, surrounded by a fertile area where natural uranium is
transformed into plutonium. Also the cycle uranium 233-thorium can be used.
The coolant is liquid sodium, the steam is produced in heat exchangers. His name "breeder" is
due in the fertile area the reactor produces more amount of fissile material than it consumes in
operation, it means that it generates more new fuel than the fuel that it spends.

Light water graphite-moderated reactor (RBMK)

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, much as in a BWR. Fuel is low-enriched uranium oxide

Fast neutron reactors (FNR)

Some reactors 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. If they are
configured to produce more fissile material (plutonium) than they consume they are called fast breeder
reactors (FBR).

Advanced reactors
Considering the closed fuel cycle, Generation I-III reactors recycle plutonium (and possibly uranium), while
Generation IV are expected to have full actinide recycle.
Generation I reactors were developed in the 1950-60s. They mostly used natural uranium fuel and used
graphite as moderator.
Generation II reactors are typified by the present US fleet and most in operation elsewhere. They typically
use enriched uranium fuel and are mostly cooled and moderated by water.
Generation III are the advanced reactors evolved from these, the first few of which are in operation in Japan
and from early 2018, in China and the UAE.
Generation IV designs will not be operational before the mid-2020s. They tend to have closed fuel cycles and
burn the long-lived actinides now forming part of spent fuel, so that fission products are the only high-level
waste.
Generation IV International Forum (GIF) is an international collective representing governments of 14 countries
where nuclear energy is significant now and also seen as vital for the future. Share R&D rather than build
reactors.
GIF reactor technologies
Gas-cooled fast reactor (GFR). is a high-temperature helium-cooled fast-spectrum reactor with a closed fuel
cycle. It combines the advantages of fast-spectrum systems for long-term sustainability of uranium resources and
waste minimisation (through fuel multiple reprocessing and fission of long-lived actinides), with those of high-
temperature systems (high thermal cycle efficiency and industrial use of the generated heat, for hydrogen
production for example).

Lead-cooled fast reactor (LFR). Is a flexible fast neutron reactor which can use depleted uranium or thorium
fuel matrices, and burn actinides from LWR fuel. Liquid metal (Pb or Pb-Bi eutectic) cooling is at atmospheric
pressure by natural convection. Fuel is metal or nitride, with full actinide recycle from regional or central
reprocessing plants.
Molten salt reactor (MSR) the uranium fuel is dissolved in the fluoride salt coolant which circulates through
graphite core channels to achieve some moderation and an epithermal neutron spectrum:
1. one a fast reactor with fissile material dissolved in the circulation fuel salt;
The Molten Salt Fast Neutron Reactor (MSFR), which will take in thorium fuel cycle, recycling of actinides,
closed Th/U fuel cycle with no U enrichment, with enhanced safety and minimal wastes.
2. the other with solid particle fuel in graphite and the salt functioning only as coolant.
The Advanced High-Temperature Reactor (AHTR) also known as the fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature
reactor (FHR) – with the same graphite and solid fuel core structures as the VHTR and molten salt as coolant
instead of helium
Sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR). The SFR uses liquid sodium as the reactor coolant, allowing high power
density with low coolant volume, at low pressure.
Supercritical water-cooled reactor (SCWR). This is a very high-pressure water-cooled reactor which
operates above the thermodynamic critical point of water (374ºC, 22 MPa) to give a thermal efficiency about
one-third higher than today's light water reactors from which the design evolves.
Very high-temperature gas reactor (VHTR). These are graphite-moderated, helium-cooled reactors, based
on substantial experience.

Components of a nuclear reactor

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.
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.
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.
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.*
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.

Fuelling a nuclear power reactor

If graphite or heavy water is used as moderator, it is possible to run a power reactor on natural
instead of enriched uranium. Natural uranium has the same elemental composition as when it was
mined (0.7% U-235, over 99.2% U-238), enriched uranium has had the proportion of the fissile
isotope (U-235) increased by a process called enrichment, commonly to 3.5 - 5.0%. In this case the
moderator can be ordinary water, and such reactors are collectively called light water reactors.
Because the light water absorbs neutrons as well as slowing them, it is less efficient as a moderator
than heavy water or graphite.
During operation, some of the U-238 is changed to plutonium, and Pu-239 ends up providing about
one third of the energy from the fuel.
In most reactors the fuel is ceramic uranium oxide (UO2 with a melting point of 2800°C) and most is
enriched. The fuel pellets (usually about 1 cm diameter and 1.5 cm long) are typically arranged in a
long zirconium alloy (zircaloy) tube to form a fuel rod, the zirconium being hard, corrosion-resistant
and transparent to neutrons.* Numerous rods form a fuel assembly, which is an open lattice and can
be lifted into and out of the reactor core. In the most common reactors these are about 4 metres
long. A BWR fuel assembly may be about 320 kg, a PWR one 655 kg, in which case they hold 183 kg
uranium and 460 kgU respectively. In both, about 100 kg of zircaloy is involved.
Burnable poisons are often used in fuel or coolant to even out the performance of the reactor over
time from fresh fuel being loaded to refuelling. These are neutron absorbers which decay under
neutron exposure, compensating for the progressive build up of neutron absorbers in the fuel as it is
burned. The best known is gadolinium, which is a vital ingredient of fuel in naval reactors where
installing fresh fuel is very inconvenient, so reactors are designed to run more than a decade between
refuellings. Gadolinium is incorporated in the ceramic fuel pellets. An alternative is zirconium diboride
integral fuel burnable absorber (IFBA) as a thin coating on normal pellets.

The power rating of a nuclear power reactor

Thermal MWt, which depends on the design of the actual nuclear reactor itself, and relates to the
quantity and quality of the steam it produces.

Gross electrical MWe indicates the power produced by the attached steam turbine and generator,
and also takes into account the ambient temperature for the condenser circuit (cooler means more
electric power, warmer means less). Rated gross power assumes certain conditions with both.

Net electrical MWe, which is the power available to be sent out from the plant to the grid, after
deducting the electrical power needed to run the reactor (cooling and feed-water pumps, etc.) and the
rest of the plant.*

Thermal efficiency %, the ratio of gross MWe to thermal MW. This relates to the difference in
temperature between the steam from the reactor and the cooling water. It is often 33-37%.

Net efficiency %, the ratio of net MWe achieved to thermal MW. This is a little lower, and allows for
plant usage.
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. The Russian
KLT-40S is a reactor well proven in icebreakers and now proposed for wider use in desalination and, on barges, for
remote area power supply. A larger Russian factory-built and barge-mounted reactor is the VBER-150, of 350 MW
thermal, 110 MWe. The larger VBER-300 PWR is a 325 MWe unit, originally envisaged in pairs as a floating nuclear
power plant, displacing 49,000 tonnes.

Lifetime of nuclear reactors Most of today's nuclear plants which were originally designed for 30 or 40-year operating
lives. In the USA most of the more than one hundred reactors are expected to be granted licence extensions from 40 to
60 years. Steam generators are the most prominent and expensive of these, and many have been replaced after about 30
years where the reactor otherwise has the prospect of running for 60 years. In Candu reactors, pressure tube replacement
has been undertaken on some plants after about 30 years operation.
Some components simply wear out, corrode or degrade to a low level of efficiency. These need to be replaced. A second
issue is that of obsolescence. Thirdly, the properties of materials may degrade with age, particularly with heat and neutron
irradiation. Another important issue is knowledge management over the full lifecycle from design, through construction
and operation to decommissioning for reactors and other facilities.

Load-following capability Nuclear power plants are best run continuously at high capacity to meet base-load
demand in a grid system. If their power output is ramped up and down on a daily and weekly basis, efficiency is
compromised. Advanced Load-Following Control System for PWRs that automatically adjusts the plant's electrical
output according to the needs of the grid operator.
Primary coolants - There is a wide variety – gas, water, light metal, heavy metal and salt:
Water or heavy water must be maintained at very high pressure ( 7-15 MPa) to enable it to function well
above 100°C, up to 345°C. Supercritical water around 25 MPa can give 45% thermal efficiency. Ultra
supercritical levels (30+ MPa) 50% may be attained.
Helium (7-14 MPa)
Carbon Dioxide. is denser than helium and thus likely to give better thermal conversion efficiency.
Sodium, as normally used in fast neutron reactors at around 550ºC, melts at 98°C and boils at 883°C