1. NUCLEAR POWER
PLANT
MET401 POWERPLANT ENGINEERING

2. CONTENT
 Nuclear fission & neutron energies
 Radioactive decay and half life
 Temperature distribution, Heat transfer and fluid flow in nuclear
reactor
 Types of reactor
 Pressurized water reactor (PWR)
 Boiling water reactor (BWR)
 Gas cooled reactor
 Liquid metal fast breeder reactor
 Heavy water reactor
 Fusion power reactor

3. Nuclear Fission
 Nuclear Fission energy is released when a very heavy atomic nucleus absorbs a
neutron and splits into two lighter fragments. The energy release in this
process is enormous. It is 10 million times greater than the energy released
when one atom of carbon from a fossil fuel is burned.
 There are 3 nuclear isotopes of importance to nuclear power that exhibit this
behavior.
 235U (Uranium-235)
 239Pu (Plutonium-239)
 233U (Uranium-233)
Of the 3, only 235U is found naturally on Earth. Natural Uranium found on Earth
consists of 99.3 % 238U and 0.7% 235U. The two other isotopes, 239Pu and 233U can be
created from the far more abundant 238U and Thorium nuclei via advanced Nuclear
techniques.
Nuclear fission video

4. Radioactive decay and half life
 An atom that is radioactive will decrease its radioactivity in
time and eventually decay.
 How fast the radioactivity decreases depends on the half-life.
 The half-life is defined as the time it takes for half of the
radioactivity to decay.
 Hence an isotope with a short half-life will decay quickly. The
half-life is also inversely proportional to the intensity of
radioactivity. Therefore the higher the intensity of
radioactivity the shorter the half-life.

5. Half life of some radioactive isotopes
Isotope Half-life
Strontium-90 28 years
Caesium-137 30 years
Plutonium-239 24,000 years
Caesium-135 2.3 million years
Iodine-129 15.7 million years

7. World statistic
Country No. of nuclear powerplant Capacity in MWe
Sweden 11 9401
Ukraine 13 11358
India 14 2446
South Korea 16 12990
Germany 19 21072
Canada 20 13601
Russia 30 20739
United Kingdom 32 12427
Japan 54 44394
France 59 63113
United States 104 95622
TOTALS 447 355542

8. Locations

9. Types of nuclear reactors

10. Pressurized Water Reactors
 Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR's) are by far the most common type of
Nuclear Reactor deployed to date.
 Ordinary water is used as both neutron moderators and coolant. It is
separate from the water used to generate steam and to drive a turbine.
 In order to efficiently convert the heat produced by the Nuclear Reaction
into electricity, the water is contained at pressures 150 times greater than
atmospheric pressure.

11. Boiling Water Reactors
 In a Boiling Water Reactor (BWR), ordinary light water is used as both
a moderator and coolant,
 there is no separate secondary steam cycle. The water from the
reactor is converted into steam and used to directly drive the
generator turbine. These are the second most commonly used types
of reactors.

12. Liquid-Metal Fast-Breeder Reactor
 In the LMFBR, the fission reaction produces heat to run the
turbine while at the same time breeding plutonium fuel for
the reactor.

13. High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactors
 High Temperature gas cooled reactors operate at significantly
higher temperatures than PWRs and use a gas as the primary
coolant.
 The nuclear reaction is mostly moderated by carbon. These
reactors can achieve significantly higher efficiencies than PWRs but
the power output per reactor is limited by the less efficient cooling
power of the gas.

14. Heavy Water Reactors
 Heavy Water reactors are similar to PWRs but use water
enriched with the deuterium isotope of Hydrogen as the
moderator and coolant.
 The "heavy water" and makes up about 0.022 parts per
million of water found on Earth.
 The advantage of using Heavy water as the moderator is that
natural, un-enriched Uranium can be used to drive the
nuclear reactor.

15. Evolution of nuclear power plant

16. Fukushima incident
 watch video