A core catcher is a device provided to catch the molten core material ( corium) of a nuclear reactor in case of a

nuclear meltdown A nuclear meltdown (core meltdown, core melt accident, meltdown or partial core melt) is a severe nuclear reactor accident that results in core damage from overheating. The term ''nuclear meltdown'' is not officially defined by the Internatio ...

and prevent it from escaping the

containment building A containment building is a reinforced steel, concrete or lead structure enclosing a nuclear reactor. It is designed, in any emergency, to contain the escape of radioactive steam or gas to a maximum pressure in the range of . The containment i ...

. A core catcher is made from a special concrete ceramic to prevent material from trickling through; it also has a cooling mechanism to cool down the core material. The core catcher of the

European Pressurized Reactor The EPR is a third generation pressurised water reactor design. It has been designed and developed mainly by Framatome (part of Areva between 2001 and 2017) and Électricité de France (EDF) in France, and Siemens in Germany. In Europe this ...

(EPR) has 170 m² expansion area and a mass of 500 t. Examples of reactor types with core catchers, besides the EPR, are: *

SNR-300 The SNR-300 was a fast breeder sodium-cooled nuclear reactor built near the town of Kalkar, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The reactor was completed but never taken online. SNR-300 was to output 327 megawatts. The project cost about 7 billion ...

(fast breeder)Areva Brochure: EPR - reference number:G-61-V1-07-GER * AES-91 / VVER-1000/428 *

VVER-1200 The water-water energetic reactor (WWER), or VVER (from russian: водо-водяной энергетический реактор; transliterates as ; ''water-water power reactor'') is a series of pressurized water reactor designs originally de ...

(PWR) * SWR1000 (BWR) *

ESBWR The Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (ESBWR) is a passively safe generation III+ reactor design derived from its predecessor, the Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (SBWR) and from the Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR). All are desi ...

(

BWR A boiling water reactor (BWR) is a type of light water nuclear reactor used for the generation of electrical power. It is a design different from a Soviet graphite-moderated RBMK. It is the second most common type of electricity-generating nuc ...

) *

ABWR The advanced boiling water reactor (ABWR) is a Generation III boiling water reactor. The ABWR is currently offered by GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) and Toshiba. The ABWR generates electrical power by using steam to power a turbine connected ...

(BWR) * APWR ( PWR) * Atmea I (PWR) *

ACPR-1000 The CPR-1000, or CPR1000 (Chinese PWR) is a Generation II+ pressurized water reactor, based on the French 900 MWe three cooling loop design (M310) imported in the 1980s, improved to have a slightly increased net power output of 1,000 MWe (1080 MW ...

(PWR) * EU-APR1400 (PWR) * IPWR-900 The AES-91, a project of Atomstroyexport based on the VVER-1000 design, was envisaged to be the first type of nuclear plant to have a core catcher directly underneath the reactor. Thus, in early 2011, the two reactors of the Chinese

Tianwan Nuclear Power Plant Tianwan Nuclear Power Plant is a nuclear power plant (NPP) in the city of Lianyungang in Jiangsu Province, China. It is located on the coast of the Yellow Sea approximately 30 kilometers east of Lianyungang proper. It is co-owned by Jiangs ...

were the only working nuclear reactors with this type of core catchers. The Russian physicist who helped design the Russian core-catcher model during the Chernobyl crisis, Leonid Bolshov, has stressed that the experience of Chernobyl has encouraged Russia to create reactors with core-catcher safety devices in new nuclear plants. In 2018,

Rosatom Rosatom, ( rus, Росатом, p=rɐsˈatəm}) also known as Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation, the State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom or Rosatom State Corporation, is a Russian state corporation headquartered in Moscow that special ...

installed a 200-tonne core catcher at Bangladesh's Rooppur 1 Nuclear Power Plant (planned to go into operation in 2023), describing it as "a unique protection system".{{Cite web, url=http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Core-catcher-installation-under-way-at-Rooppur-1, title=Core catcher installation under way at Rooppur 1 - World Nuclear News, website=www.world-nuclear-news.org, access-date=2019-06-05

References

External links

Under The Hood With Duncan Williams — Core Catching
Duncan Williams Nuclear power plant components Nuclear reactor safety