Patent Number: 039473180
Section: claims

1. A liquid-metal-cooled reactor comprising: a housing; a core in said housing; fuel elements in said core; stacks of said fuel elements in said core; a first rotatable plug having at least one hole; a second rotatable plug disposed in said housing and accommodating said first plug; a recharging mechanism; a drive in said recharging mechanism; a guide tube in said recharging mechanism for moving through said hole along the longitudinal axis of the reactor with the aid of said drive; a rod inside said guide tube, having an inner space, for gripping the fuel-element stacks and remove them from said core into said guide tube; a gripper in said inner space of the latter; a device for detecting stacks with leaky fuel elements; said guide tube also serving as a sampler in said detecting device; said sampler having an inner space for receiving inert carrier gas fed under pressure thereto and to degas a coolant sample; means inside said guide tube for introducing the carrier gas into said sampler; means inside said guide tube for evacuating the gas together with gases evolved from the coolant sample; and means for measuring the radioactivity of the carrier gas together with that of the evolved gases, both removed from said sampler, and communicating with said inner space of the latter. 2. The reactor as defined in claim 1, wherein said introducing means is in the form of a first duct in a wall of said guide tube, communicating with said inner space of the guide tube through a first hole made in said wall below the level of the bottom end of the stack, transferred from said core into said guide tube; and wherein said evacuating means is in the form of a second duct in said wall, communicating with said inner space of the guide tube through a second hole made in said wall above the level of the coolant sample in said guide tube. 3. The reactor as defined in claim 1, wherein said introducing means is in the form of a first duct in a wall of said rod, communicating with said inner space of the rod through a hole made in the proximity to an end face of said rod; a sealing member for shutting off the flow of the coolant sample from the stack on said end face of the rod; said evacuating means is in the form of a second duct in a wall of said guide tube, communicating with said inner space of the latter; and wherein said wall of the rod has therein another hole above the level of the coolant sample in said guide tube.