Two groups, each consisting of 1 pump and 2 heat exchangers (HX's), are radially arranged at the periphery of the reactor vessel. The in total 2 primary pumps and 4 heat exchangers (HX) are able to extract at all time the heat that is produced in the sub-critical core. |
The HX's are of the straight tubular, single pass, counter-current type. In the reference design, the secondary coolant is boiling water at low pressure. The pumps are installed besides the HX's. They are vertical units with an impeller at the bottom end of a long shaft. A check valve is fitted on the discharge pipe of the pump to avoid a reverse flow when the pump is shut down. Click for the heat exchanger and pump characteristics tables. |