 Quote by QuantumPion
It's not an accident problem, it's simply the design of the system.
A gas cooled reactor using the Brayton cycle would still have to have a way to dump decay heat on a trip, which would involve venting gas or steam to the atmosphere.
|
The issue here, as I think I understand it, is that with the Rankine a condenser is required and that when the condenser stops the system has no way of continuing to transfer heat to the turbine and removing energy (decay heat) from the system. I don't see the need for a condensor in a Brayton. Thus such a system could could continue running turbine at lower power and bleeding off energy after a reactor trip through the normal path.
|
I don't understand your comment about LWR's not generating high enough temperatures for a Brayton cycle. You may be confusing with rankine cycle with superheated steam, which is true that most LWR's cannot produce superheated steam.
|
Well IIRC 300K above ambient is typical for an LWR, where as a practical Brayton might run 700K above ambient. And I'm assuming, most likely, He as the gas. Under what trip circumstances He in a Brayton need to be vented?