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The Reactor Protection System (RPS) is a system, computerized in later BWR models, that is designed to automatically, rapidly, and completely shut down and make safe the Nuclear Steam Supply System (NSSS – the reactor pressure vessel, pumps, and water/steam piping within the containment) if some event occurs that could result in the reactor entering an unsafe operating condition.
The BORAX Experiments were a series of safety experiments on boiling water nuclear reactors conducted by Argonne National Laboratory in the 1950s and 1960s at the National Reactor Testing Station in eastern Idaho. [1] They were performed using the five BORAX reactors that were designed and built by Argonne. [2]
Boiling water reactors are able to SCRAM the reactor completely with the help of their control rods. [2] In the case of a loss of coolant accident (LOCA), the water-loss of the primary cooling system can be compensated with normal water pumped into the cooling circuit.
A boiling water reactor (BWR) is a type of nuclear reactor used for the generation of electrical power. It is the second most common type of electricity-generating nuclear reactor after the pressurized water reactor (PWR).
On 29 March, Richard Lahey, former head of safety research for boiling-water reactors at General Electric, speculated that the reactor core may have melted through the reactor containment vessel onto a concrete floor, raising concerns of a major release of radioactive material, while failing to divulge the report by Dale G. Bridenbaugh which ...
In operation, decay heat boils steam, which is drawn into the heat exchanger and condensed; then it falls by weight of gravity back into the reactor. This process keeps the cooling water in the reactor, making it unnecessary to use powered feedwater pumps. The water in the open pool slowly boils off, venting clean steam to the atmosphere.
If all of the independent cooling trains of the ECCS fail to operate as designed, this heat can increase the fuel temperature to the point of damaging the reactor. If water is present, it may boil, bursting out of its pipes. For this reason, nuclear power plants are equipped with pressure-operated relief valves and backup supplies of cooling water.
Void collapse in the reactor water caused the reactor water level to drop, which resulted in an automatic increase in feedwater flow. The feedwater pumps then tripped on low suction pressure. One pump turned back on automatically when the low suction pressure signal reset, feeding water rapidly into the now lower-pressure reactor vessel.