Patent Number: 040000389
Section: description

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS In all the illustrations like parts of the nuclear power station are provided with like reference numerals. The nuclear power stations which are illustrated have a direct helium cycle, and each comprise a reactor 1 and the following machine groups: a turbine set 2 with a compressor and a gas turbine, other apparatus namely a heat exchanger 3 and a preliminary cooling apparatus 4, and also a generator 5 and gas conduits which are designated with arrows showing the direction of flow of the working medium, that is to say helium. To receive and support the machine groups 1 to 5 with the gas conduits, rooms such as the room designated as 8 for example are hollowed out from the natural rock 7 in each of which a machine group such as the reactor 1 is arranged. In order to make the rooms such as for example the room 8 accessible from the atmosphere, tunnels are hollowed out from the rock 7 such as for example the tunnel 9 which connects the room for receiving and supporting the machine groups with the atmosphere. The walls of the rooms, for example the wall of the room 8, are provided with a cast-on concrete layer 10 which takes up the pressures acting on the external wall of the machine group and bears on the wall of the room. This concrete layer 10 is cooled by means of a cooling system not shown here but arranged in the concrete layer. The concrete layer is given its own strength by a prestressed cable system and/or by reinforcements in cases where it supports an intermediate wall between two rooms which are subjected to different pressure, for example in the case of the intermediate wall 11. In the access tunnels, as in illustrated for the tunnel 9, there is provided a chamber 9.sup.1 which is adjacent the particular machine group concerned, in this case the reactor 1, and which is secludable by means of a door 12 relatively to the atmosphere. The nuclear power station shown in FIGS. 1 and 3 is accessible from above. The rooms for receiving and supporting the machine group 1 to 5 and the access tunnels 9 are hollowed out substantially vertically in natural rock 7. The other nuclear power station which is shown in FIG. 2 and FIG. 4 is accessible from the rock face 13. The rooms and the tunnels are hollowed out substantially horizontally in the rock. 6 designates a helium store. The tunnels 9 are so large that the machine group to which each tunnel leads can be transported through the said tunnel. At any rate the tunnels are sufficiently large to allow the largest component part of the machine group to be transported through them. For example the tunnel 9 which leads to the reactor 1 is sufficiently large to allow the largest part of the reactor 1 which, as is known per se, is assembled from component parts in the room 8 hollowed out for it, to be transported through this tunnel. The respective machine group can be transported complete through the tunnel concerned in the case of machine groups 2 to 5. The invention is not limited to the selected constructional example of a nuclear plant station with direct helium cycle. It is also possible to construct other nuclear power station systems with different cycles in accordance with the present invention.