General Description

Abstract

Superphenix reactor is located on a 170-hectare site along the Rhone River, the Creys-Malville site. It is a sodium-cooled fast reactor built in the line of Rapsodie experimental reactor and Phenix 250 MW_e power reactor. It is a pool reactor, that is to say the primary circuit is inside the reactor main vessel, which therefore contains, besides the core, the primary pumps and the intermediate heat exchangers. This vessel is at the centre of the primary containment. Four sodium secondary circuits leave the vessel heat exchangers to the steam generators. The latters are installed in four buildings adjoining the reactor building. The generated steam is then directed towards the turbine building where two 620 MW_e turbines are joined. With this 1240 MW_e power, Superphenix remains nowadays the most powerful sodium-cooled fast reactor ever built in the world.