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Swiss nuclear power and the case for long-term operation
Designed for 40 years but built to last far longer, Switzerland’s nuclear power plants have all entered long-term operation. Yet age alone says little about safety or performance. Through continuous upgrades, strict regulatory oversight, and extensive aging management, the country’s reactors are being prepared for decades of continued operation, in line with international practice.
Prodyot Roy, Lawrence E. Pohl
Nuclear Technology | Volume 13 | Number 3 | March 1972 | Pages 284-288
Technical Paper | Material | doi.org/10.13182/NT72-A31083
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
High efficiency cold traps are desirable to reduce reactor sodium impurities to their lowest practical levels to minimize materials degradation and prevent system flow blockages from occurring. The trap efficiency can be improved by increasing the coefficient of mass transfer in the crystallizer zone, through increasing the turbulence in that region. A highly effective method of accomplishing this, utilizing electromagnetic stirring, was employed in sodium mass transfer studies at General Electric Company under AEC sponsorship. The effect of increasing cold trap turbulence, to achieve calculated Reynolds numbers up to 105, was tested in a loop by measuring hydrogen and oxygen removal rates with the cold trap operated in both turbulent and laminar modes. The results show that electromagnetic stirring increased the conventional cold trap efficiency from ∼51% to ∼99%. Use of this concept permits faster system impurity cleanup with smaller equipment than was possible heretofore.