What materials are used in a nuclear reactor?

[M Usman]

[SOLVED] Materials for Nuclear Reactor

Please briefly explain the Materials which are used in nuclear reactor. such canning material, moderator etc.

 

[Astronuc]

What type of reactor?

Liquid metal fast reactor (like FFTF, EBR-II, Phenix) would use stainless steel (SS 316, or HT-9, D9 and a few others) cladding around MOX fuel pellets. The shround and nozzle are stainless steel, with possible steel or Inconel fasteners. The coolant is liquid sodium.

The majority of commercial power reactors in the world a light water reactors (LWRs) with a few heavy water reactors like the CANDU system.

LWRs come in two types - Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs), which as the name implies, allow saturated water to boil in the core at approx. 72 bar (1045 psia) with T_in~272-276°C and T_out=Tsat~285-286°C, and Pressurized Water Reactors (PWRs), which use sub-cooled water at about 156 bar (2235 psia) with T_in~290°C and T_out~322-330°C. Some nucleate boiling may occur in the upper third of the PWR core in the hottest fuel.

The BWR fuel cladding is normally recrystallized Zircaloy-2 (although one vendor used CWSR Zr-2) surround UO₂ fuel pellets, although there is limited MOX experience.

PWR fuel cladding has been primarily Zircaloy-4 (Zr-4) which has been processed in the CWSR state. More recently however as fuel duty and burnup has increased, newer alloys such as the quinary alloy ZIRLO (Zr- 1Sn-1Nb-0.1Fe-0.125O) or the ternary alloy M5 (Zr-1Nb-0.125O) have been introduced.

Gas cooled reactors like the AGR use a stainless steel cladding (tubing) and a graphite moderator. Pebble bed gas-cooled reactor will likely use a graphite/carbide cladding, but the fuel is in the form of small spherical particles.

 

[M Usman]

Thank for your Cooperation. M Usman