Abstract
At present, nuclear power generation is mainly based on light water reactors (LWR’s) designed as pressurized water reactors (PWR’s) or boiling water reactors (BWR’s) (see Table 1–1). LWR’s use enriched uranium fuel, which makes for greater flexibility in the choice of reactor core materials, especially allowing normal (light) water to be used as a coolant and moderator. PWR’s deliver the heat generated in their reactor core to water circulating under high pressure in primary coolant circuits. From here the heat is transferred to a secondary coolant system via a steam generator to produce steam driving a turbo-generator system. In BWR’s with direct cycle, the steam for the turbo-generator system is generated right in the reactor core and sent directly to the turbo-generator. PWR’s and BWR’s have been advanced to a high level of technical maturity in more than twenty years of development. They are built in unit sizes up to 1300 MW (e). The most important design data of large PWR and BWR power plants are listed in Table 4–1.
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Selected Literature
Light water reactors
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Kessler, G. (1983). Converter Reactors with a Thermal Neutron Spectrum. In: Nuclear Fission Reactors. Topics in Energy. Springer, Vienna. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7091-7622-1_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7091-7622-1_4
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