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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.
Allen J. Edwards, M. J. Bird, Michael K. Denham
Nuclear Technology | Volume 98 | Number 1 | April 1992 | Pages 70-78
Technical Paper | Fast Reactor Safety / Nuclear Reactor Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT92-A34651
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In the Sodium Entry Series (SES) experiments carried out at the Winfrith Technology Centre’s Molten Fuel Test Facility, thermite-generated, molten uranium dioxide is injected into test sections that represent fullscale typical geometries of a fast reactor subassembly. The test sections are initially full of sodium at 500°C. Comparisons with previous studies without sodium show that the molten material progressed for similar distances before freezing. In addition, there is a complete absence of molten fuel/coolant interactions in all the SES experiments. Consequently, it is concluded that the presence of sodium has little influence on the propagation of molten fuel through initially intact subassembly geometries.