Nuclear reactors Definition and 8 Discussions

A nuclear reactor, formerly known as an atomic pile, is a device used to initiate and control a fission nuclear chain reaction or nuclear fusion reactions. Nuclear reactors are used at nuclear power plants for electricity generation and in nuclear marine propulsion. Heat from nuclear fission is passed to a working fluid (water or gas), which in turn runs through steam turbines. These either drive a ship's propellers or turn electrical generators' shafts. Nuclear generated steam in principle can be used for industrial process heat or for district heating. Some reactors are used to produce isotopes for medical and industrial use, or for production of weapons-grade plutonium. As of early 2019, the IAEA reports there are 454 nuclear power reactors and 226 nuclear research reactors in operation around the world.

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  1. xpell

    Could a high / very high temperature nuclear reactor operate in Venus?

    Hi. I'm just a curious person with high-school-level scientific knowledge. However, I was wondering if a specially-engineered Generation IV high or very high temperature (800-1,000ºC) nuclear reactor could work in Venus using the local atmosphere at 450ºC as "coolant", just like a "typical"...
  2. Northmeadow

    NRC Event Report SCRAM Code help

    I am a dedicated nuclear physics and radiology enthusiast who often looks at the NRC’s event notification reports for information about our countries nuclear industry and the status of our reactors. And every time I read the report and an event occurs at a commercial reactor they are required to...
  3. jugren

    Scaling nuclear reactors

    Hi all, For my studies I chose a course on scaling up and down of industrial processes (mostly focussed on the chemical industry), but for our project we (a group of students who knew almost nothing about nuclear reactors) chose to look if the approach (dimensional analysis) can be applied to...
  4. chandrahas

    What prevents high Beta plasma confinement and how to overcome the problems....

    In order to confine a plasma, the plasma pressure is supposed to be lower than the magnetic pressure. The ratio of the plasma pressure to the magnetic pressure is called beta . Theoretically, the value of beta is supposed to stay below one to confine a plasma, but can get close to it. But in...
  5. wronski11

    Role of the control rods during the core cycle

    Dear all, I would like to learn more about what happens to CRs during the reactor cycle. At the beginning of the cycle large excess reactivity is present in the core and has to be compensated with burnable absorbers (lumped in rods and WABA coating), chemical shim and CRs. There are several...
  6. xpell

    Truck-deployed nuclear reactors antineutrino detector: range?

    Hi! I was reading this article about the possibility of detecting removals of "double-use" fissile materials from a known reactor using an antineutrino detector deployed in a truck "that uses 20 tons or less of scintillator material (and) could be fit into a 6-meter shipping container and parked...
  7. A

    Idea for Aqueous Homogeneous Reactor

    How would a super-critical heavy water cooled and moderated two fluid aqueous homogeneous reactor with nitrate fuel work? Silicon carbide or alumina can be used as cladding for the internal seed core and blanket walls, with the silicon carbide on the blanket wall cladding stainless steel and...
  8. K

    How to prepare for R&D in nuclear power?

    What courses can I pursue after my undergrad education that will enable me to work on next gen nuclear technologies? What kinds of people work in these areas and what career paths do they choose? I've read a lot about the different kinds of people working on Gen 4 reactors(LFTRs, TWRs) and...
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