Re:Small nuclear reactors: tiny NuScale reactor gets safety ...
by torpfactory on Friday September 04, 2020 @12:23PM
(#24376357)
I think they are not trivial but relatively easy parts of the design. I’m sure they can design support structure to withstand whatever arbitrarily large earthquake you throw at it. The structure doesn’t need to be particularly light or compact so there shouldn’t be any design constraints getting in the way of strength. The heat transfer problem is much much harder and they’ve already solved that apparently.
Re:Small nuclear reactors: tiny NuScale reactor gets safety ...
by sandworm101 on Friday September 04, 2020 @02:04PM
(#24377382)
I;m not saying it is impossible, just interesting. One option could be to suspend these reactors on cables from above. That might let them swing around all they want during even a huge quake. The water would act as the dampener. Not much extra engineering required.
From a planning perspective, if verticality is a requirement then that verticality has to be protected as strongly as any other aspect. Any attachment or mounting points that maintain verticality must therefore be earthquake proof. If, as in the pictures, these reactors are held in place from the top, horizontal shaking from even a small earthquake would put massive strain on that joint. It isn't just the long/thin/heavy reactor but all the water sloshing around too. A super-strong joint and maybe something important bends/breaks under load? A flexible joint to allow the reactor to sway? Sway how much? What happens at the travel limit of the joint? Can we risk the reactor contracting its neighbours? These are not trivial engineering questions.