Fast Reactor Safety

Fast Reactor Safety deals with safety design criteria and methodology for fast reactors. Topics covered include safety evaluation methods, system disturbances, containment, and licensing. The characteristics of fast reactors, including heat ratings and coolants, are also discussed. Comprised of six chapters, this book opens with an overview of methods used to evaluate nuclear safety, along with neutron kinetics, thermal and feedback effects, and fault tree analysis. The reader is then introduced to possible system disturbances in relation to three distinct fast reactor systems: liquid-metal-cooled fast breeder reactors, gas-cooled fast breeder reactors, and steam-cooled fast breeder reactors. The next chapter looks at safety criteria that are set to define the design of a safe plant, together with the safety features that might be included. The remaining chapters focus on the particular problems of a sodium-cooled design; containment building and primary circuit and vessel containment; and licensing of the plant. This monograph is intended for graduates and undergraduates in nuclear engineering who are attending courses in reactor safety.

Nuclear Reactor Safety aims to put the nuclear hazard in perspective by providing an objective overall technical review of the field. It focuses on reactor accidents and their consequences. The technical arguments will be concerned broadly with reactor accident conditions and will deal with both the arrangements necessary to prevent any dangerous diversion from normal operation and to ameliorate the consequences if such a diversion should occur. The book is organized into three parts. Part I describes the nature of fission products and the hazards to man and his environment resulting from the uncontrolled release of fission products in accident conditions. Part II discusses a quantitative approach to reactor safety assessment and the quantification of vessel integrity. Part III deals with the basic principles of analysis and assessment of reactor safety, and then considers the specific safety problems of thermal and fast reactors in detail. This book is intended for two types of readers. First are technicians, those engaged in nuclear engineering: designers, constructors, and operators of nuclear stations, as well as those who would make a career in nuclear safety. Second are those (not necessarily scientists) who are tasked with making decisions in the field of energy use and allocation, or are concerned with environmental matters.

This book highlights the advances and trends in the safety analysis of sodium-cooled fast reactors, especially from the perspective of particle bed-related phenomena during core disruptive accidents. A sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR) is an optimized candidate of the next-generation nuclear reactor systems. Its safety is a critical issue during its R&D process. The book elaborates on research progresses in particle bed-related phenomena in terms of the molten-pool mobility, the molten-pool sloshing motion, the debris bed formation behavior, and the debris bed self-leveling behavior. The book serves as a good reference for researchers, professionals, and postgraduate students interested in sodium-cooled fast reactors. Knowledge provided is also useful for those who are engaging in severe accident analysis for lead-cooled fast reactors and light water reactors.