Patent GB-833623-A (GB)
Title: Fluid cooled nuclear reactor
IPC: G21C1/00
Filed: 1945-12-21
Abstract: 833,623. Nuclear reactors. UNITED KINGDOM ATOMIC ENERGY AUTHORITY. Dec. 21, 1945 [Dec. 19, 1944], No. 34829/45. Class 39(4). A reactor intended for the production of plutonium comprises, in a preferred embodiment, a graphite core having horizontal channels into which fuel element rods of natural uranium may be inserted at one side of the core and removed from the opposite side where they are discharged into a water-filled shoot. The core is shielded by water in a concrete vessel except the side constituting the fuel element loading face which is shielded by lead wool or shot. The fuel element channels are cooled by water, the heated water being purified to a flash tank whence it passes to a primary heat exchanger and is then returned to the reactor, Fig. 2 (not shown). In alternative arrangements the fuel may be plutonium or uranium 235, the moderator may be beryllium or deuterium oxide, and the coolant may be diphenyl, deuterium oxide or helium. As shown in Fig. 4, a graphite core 77 contained in a gastight steel shell 79, 80 is surrounded by a water shield 93a and at the loading face has a lead shield 76, 136. Fuel element-receiving tubes 78 extend from the loading face where they are connected with a supply of cooling water and provided with a valve to shut that end of a tube when it is being loaded, Figs. 10, 12 (not shown), the other ends of the tubes opening into a water-filled tank 68 situated above a shoot 97 having a pair of gate valves 98, 99. The exit end of each tube 78 is closed by a spring- loaded pivoted stop, Figs. 15, 16 (not shown), whereby on the insertion of fresh fuel element rods into a filled tube 78 the stop is deflected and the old fuel rods are simultaneously ejected into the shoot 97. The fuel for loading is contained in a lead magazine, Figs. 17-21 (not shown), carried on a truck 203 mounted on an elevator platform 229 on a traversing structure 226 movable on trackways 227, 228, whereby the outlet from the magazine may be coupled to any tube 78. The fuel rods roll one by one under gravity in the magazine into a position in which each rod may in turn be ejected from the magazine by an hydraulically-operated plunger. When all the fuel rods of one tube have been ejected the valve 99 is opened and the rods together with a quantity of water drop into a container 30 on a truck 31. A lid 117 is then placed on the container by a crahe 119 and when each of the containers have been similarly filled the truck is pulled through a tunnel 106 by a cable, Fig. 5 (not shown), into a soaking pit. The reactivity is automatically controlled by vertically movable control rods movable in response to the ionisation in a chamber filled with boron fluoride situated at the reactor periphery ; further control rods are automatically injected into the core under fluid pressure in the event of an emergency, Fig. 22 (not shown). The fuel rods 140, Fig. 11, are disposed in aluminium cans 177 and the tubes 78 have ribs 141 to provide coolant passages 142. In a modified fuel element, Fig. 24, the fuel comprises a hollow tube 359 lined internally 8 externally with aluminium 361, 360, the coolant water flowing through the centre 362. A composite fuel element, Fig. 25, comprises an aluminium clad uranium rod 367 disposed in an aluminium-sheathed uranium cylinder 364, coolant water 368 flowing between the two parts. In another modification of Fig. 11, Fig. 26 (not shown), the uranium rod 140 is hollow and forms an additional passage for the flow of coolant.