These consist of a series of blades mounted on a shaft. The steam coming from the steam generators drives one or more steam turbines. Once the water of the primary circuit has delivered its heat, a pump then moves it back to the reactor. The water runs through these pipes and gives off its heat to the water of the secondary circuit, which flows along the outside of the pipes. This is a cylindrical tank with thousands of pipes in reverse U form. The hot water is then led to a heat exchanger, a so-called steam generator. The pressure control vessel keeps everything at high pressure so the water does not boil or form steam. This therefore heats up to a very high temperature. The heat released during the fission of the uranium nuclei is absorbed by the water of the primary circuit. The rods are placed into the reactor in bundles. These are filled with small fuel pellets of uranium oxide. The reactor equipment is a large steel vessel with thick walls, in which the fuel rods are located. The uranium mixture extracted in the mines is enriched until it contains about 4% uranium-235 That is the ideal concentration for a chain reaction. The nucleus of uranium-235 is fissile,that of uranium-238 is not. In nature, uranium exists in 3 forms: 99% uranium-238, 0.7% uranium-235 and a small amount of uranium-234. The nuclear power plants at Doel and Tihange use uranium as fuel. By dropping all the control rods at a time, the reaction is shut down within 1.3 seconds.Ī nuclear power plant with a pressurized water reactor (or high-pressure reactor) as in Doel and Tihange has 3 completely separate water circuits: a primary circuit, a secondary circuit and a tertiary circuit. This can be done by adding boric acid to the water in the reactor vessel and by lowering control rods into the reactor. The surplus of neutrons in the reactor must therefore be absorbed. After every fission, only 1 released neutron must cause a new fission. In a nuclear reactor it is important to control this chain reaction. They in turn cause new fissions and thus provide a chain reaction. At every fission, 2 or 3 neutrons are released. This is done by bombarding them with neutrons. In a nuclear reactor, thermal energy is released by splitting the nuclei of heavy atoms, such as uranium. The nucleus itself is composed of protons and neutrons. These atoms consist of a nucleus, with electrons orbiting around it.
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