Cooling Reactors

3.1 INTRODUCTION

As we saw in Chapter 2, a variety of liquids and gases have been used to cool nuclear reactors. The present chapter introduces some of the desired general features of a reactor coolant and discusses the actual processes of heat transfer from the fuel elements to the primary coolants and from the primary coolants to the steam generation system. It also reviews the various types of coolant (gaseous, liquid, and boiling) and concludes by giving some examples of the engineering features of cooling circuits used in various types of reactor.