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Going Nuclear: Notes from the officially unofficial book tour
I work in the analytical labs at one of Europe’s oldest and largest nuclear sites: Sellafield, in northwestern England. I spend my days at the fume hood front, pipette in one hand and radiation probe in the other (and dosimeter pinned to my chest, of course). Outside the lab, I have a second job: I moonlight as a writer and public speaker. My new popular science book—Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World—came out last summer, and it feels like my life has been running at full power ever since.
R. A. Brown, C. Blahnik, A. P. Muzumdar
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 88 | Number 3 | November 1984 | Pages 425-435
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE84-A18596
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) analysis for a Canada Deuterium Uranium (CANDU) reactor considers a wide range of postulated break sizes and locations in the heat transport piping. Coincident failure of the emergency coolant injection system to operate on demand must also be considered. The unique features of the CANDU core and heat transport system, and how these features affect the response of the system to a LOCA, are described. The possible range of behavior of the fuel and fuel channels following a LOCA is discussed in terms of the maximum fuel temperatures that could occur and also in terms of the potential for breaching the core pressure boundary (in the case of CANDU, this boundary comprises a large number of horizontal pressure tubes, each containing horizontal fuel bundles). It is concluded that fuel temperatures remain well below the UO2 melting temperatures and that the integrity of the pressure tubes is maintained for all postulated LOCAs.