Reactor safety system for heat-transfer medium - has openings in reactor chamber walls and spaced round periphery

摘要

The reactor safety system limits the consequences of a fault connected with loss of the heat-transfer medium in a nuclear power plant, having a first chamber contg. a reactor and a sprinkler condensing the steam produced by the boiling of the medium on the occurrence of the fault. On rise of internal pressure due to the fault, air in the chamber escapes via wall openings into an intermediate chamber, and from there into a second chamber contg. a steam-condensing basin. The openings in the first chamber walls are immediately adjacent to the bottom of the chamber, and are spaced apart round the periphery for the maximum distance. Thus the max. quantity of air is expelled through the openings and into the condenser basin in the second chamber, irrespective of where the damage occurs in the reactor. The length of the passages leading to the second chamber is such that a water lock is formed in them, preventing reverse flow of air from the second chamber into the first, and generating a vacuum in the latter.