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Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
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Breaking ground on a new approach to construction
The drive to Kairos Power’s reactor demonstration site in Oak Ridge, Tenn., is not only scenic—it’s historic. Nearly 85 years ago, roughly 30,000 construction workers transformed orchards and farmland into a key Manhattan Project site. Depending on your route, you may pass by one of the three gatehouses that were once military checkpoints controlling access to Atomic Energy Commission production facilities.
Joseph A. Fleck, Jr.
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 9 | Number 2 | February 1961 | Pages 271-280
doi.org/10.13182/NSE61-A15609
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Boiling water reactor dynamic behavior is most sensitive to pressure variations at atmospheric pressure due to the strong dependence of saturation temperature on pressure. The two important pressure variation effects at atmospheric pressure are the variation of hydrostatic pressure within the core, which leads to a change in saturation temperature with position, and the pressure variations resulting from the acceleration of water by changing steam volume. A system of equations which takes into account these pressure effects in a natural circulation boiling water reactor is derived by means of conservation principles stated in integral form. The resulting equations are solved numerically. Sample calculations reveal no special tendency toward instability other than a form of hydraulic instability which does not depend on the inclusion of pressure effects in the model.