Nuclear reactor installation with a core catcher device and method for exterior cooling of the latter by natural circulation

US5343506A · kind A · utility

Assignee

• Siemens Aktiengesellschaft · DE

Inventors

• Josef Artnik · Bräuningshof, DE
• Dietmar Bittermann
• Jurgen Eyink · Erlangen, DE
• Ulrich Fischer · Ditzingen, DE
• Andreas Göbel · Eiterfeld, DE
• Sieghard Hellmann · Erlangen, DE
• Wolfgang Kohler · Weiterstadt, DE
• Walter Korn · Vacha, DE
• Hermann Plank · Höchstadt an der Aisch, DE
• Manfred Scholz · Spaichingen, DE
• Horst Weisshaupl · Herzogenaurach, DE

Key dates

• Filing date: Jun 21, 1993
• Grant date: Aug 30, 1994
• Expiry date: Jun 21, 2013

Classification

• Technology area (CPC Y): Emerging Cross-Sectional Technologies
• CPC primary: Y02E30/30
• WIPO field: Chemical engineering
• WIPO sector: Chemistry

Abstract

A nuclear reactor installation includes a reactor pressure vessel and a reactor core in the reactor pressure vessel. A supporting and protective structure supporting the reactor pressure vessel and surrounding the reactor pressure vessel on the bottom and laterally, has a bottom region and a circumferential wall. A core catcher device for the reactor core has a collecting basin for a core melt being installed below the reactor pressure vessel. The collecting basin has a bottom wall and a jacket wall being respectively separated from the bottom region and the circumferential wall of the supporting and protective structure by a spacing gap. Cooling channels are disposed in the spacing gap at the bottom wall and the jacket wall for exterior cooling of the collecting basin with a cooling liquid. Turbulence bodies are disposed in a surface region of the bottom wall for generating a turbulent flow of the cooling liquid flowing from the inside to the outside over the bottom wall toward the jacket wall. There is also a method for starting and maintaining exterior cooling of a core catcher device of a nuclear reactor installation.