China
Africa
Explore chapters and articles related to this topic
Nuclear and Hydro Power
Published in Anco S. Blazev, Energy Security for The 21st Century, 2021
The reactor core—a steel container with bundles of uranium and control rods in it—is surrounded by a large dome-shaped structure, made of concrete and reinforced steel. It is called a “containment” building, which purpose is to shield and prevent radioactive materials from escaping from the reactor core during operation and in case of an accident.
Containment Buildings and Their Function
Published in Robert E. Masterson, Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics, 2019
Simply put, the purpose of a containment building is to prevent the release of radioactive material to the environment in the event that a reactor accident occurs. There are many different types of containment buildings, and the role of these containment buildings has continued to evolve over time. However, the designs of most of these buildings have tended to converge into one or two standard architectures or designs as the industry has become more sophisticated and mature. In this chapter, we would like to describe the role of the containment building in more detail and to discuss some of its design principles in more detail. The relationship of the containment building to the reactor pressure vessel is also discussed.
C
Published in Philip A. Laplante, Comprehensive Dictionary of Electrical Engineering, 2018
contact potential the internal voltage that exists across a p-n junction under thermal equilibrium conditions, when no external bias voltage is applied. contact printing a lithographic method whereby a photomask is placed in direct contact with a photoresist coated wafer and the pattern is transferred by exposing light through the photomask into the photoresist. contactor electromechanically actuated spring-loaded relay contacts normally used to control lights, heat, or other non-motor loads. In essence, it is an electromechanically operated switch that usually requires some form of pilot device for its actuation. containment building (1) a steel and concrete structure which encloses and isolates the radioactive portion of a nuclear power plant. (2) a heavily re-inforced structure which surrounds the reactor and other radioactive portions of a nuclear power plant so as to contain radioactive gases or debris in the event of an explosion. containment vessel the heavy steel container which encloses the core of a pressurized-water reactor cf in a nuclear power plant. content-addressable memory (CAM) sociative memory. See as-
Numerical method to simulate detonative combustion of hydrogen-air mixture in a containment
Published in Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics, 2019
Containment building of an NPP is the last barrier retaining the radioactive materials which could be released during reactor accidents and also protects the reactor and inner structures from any external impact. Events such as steam explosion, hydrogen detonation and airplane crash could bring severe impacts on the integrity of the containment building. The status report from NEA (NEA, 2018) summarized the significant progress made in the fuel coolant interaction (FCI) and the steam explosion (SE) research field. Study on the airplane crashes has been carried out to calculate the dynamic loads and its impacts by utilizing analytical tools (Saberi, Alinejad, Mahdavi, & Sepanloo, 2017; Siefert & Henkel, 2014) and experiments (Sugano et al., 1993). It is generally admitted that the containment building can withstand the impacts from the steam explosion and the airplane crashes. By the way, hydrogen release by a severe accident can develop into a detonation via hydrogen combustion. By regulation global hydrogen detonation inside the containment building should be practically eliminated on the design stage by reflecting on the containment volume and the hydrogen mass released. Nonetheless, there is still a possibility of local hydrogen combustion and it can bring impacts to compartment structures or components important to safety. Therefore, detonation wave propagation characteristics induced by the hydrogen combustion need to be investigated thoroughly for safety.
Development of Mechanistic Source Term Analysis Tool SAS4A-FATE for Lead- and Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactors
Published in Nuclear Technology, 2020
T. Q. Hua, S. J. Lee, J. Liao, A. Moisseytsev, P. Ferroni, A. Karahan, C. Y. Paik, A. M. Tentner, T. Sofu
The RV is surrounded by a guard vessel (GV) (not shown in Fig. 2) in order to contain the lead coolant in the unlikely event of RV failure. The width of the gap between the RV and the GV is sized to limit the drop in the lead level and thereby ensure continuation of core cooling. The GV and the containment building provide barriers to release of radioactive material to the environment. Both the RV and the GV are located below plant grade level as shown in Fig. 3. The containment building provides sufficient free volume and heat sinks to contain steam and radionuclides released during an accident.