Development of uranium-graphite channel reactors in the USSR

Abstract

Twenty years experience in the development and operation of uranium-graphite channel reactors has confirmed their high reliability, safety, flexibility of cycle, possibility of constant improvement of construction, and the thermal circuit. At the present stage the use of high-power channel reactors successfully solves the most important national economic problem of the intensive accumulation of nuclear power capacity. Channel reactors correspond to contemporary and contemplated trends in power development. Channel reactors give the most complete answer to the modern trend to increase unit power, since there are no technical or transportation limitations on increasing their power. The transition from the construction of the RBMK-1000 to the building of the RBMK-1500 appreciably decreases the specific cost of a NPP. It is particularly important also that this transition requires hardly any increase in the operating staff of the NPP or the builders and manufacturers of equipment. This means that in the transition the productivity of nuclear power production workers is sharply increased.