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Pressurized water reactors (PWRs) constitute the large majority of all Western nuclear power plants and are one of three types of light water reactor (LWR), the other types being boiling water reactors (BWRs) and supercritical water reactors (SCWRs). In a PWR, the primary coolant (water) is pumped under high pressure to the reactor core where it is heated by the energy generated by the fission of atoms. The heated water then flows to a steam generator where it transfers its thermal energy to a secondary system where steam is generated and flows to turbines which, in turn, spin an electric generator. In contrast to a boiling water reactor, pressure in the primary coolant loop prevents the water from boiling within the reactor. All LWRs use ordinary water as both coolant and neutron moderator. PWRs were originally designed to serve as nuclear marine propulsion for nuclear submarines and were used in the original design of the second commercial power plant at Shippingport Atomic Power Station. PWRs currently operating in the United States are considered Generation II reactors. Russia's VVER reactors are similar to U.S. PWRs. France operates many PWRs to generate the bulk of its electricity. == History == Several hundred PWRs are used for marine propulsion in aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines and ice breakers. In the US, they were originally designed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory for use as a nuclear submarine power plant. Follow-on work was conducted by Westinghouse Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory. The first purely commercial nuclear power plant at Shippingport Atomic Power Station was originally designed as a pressurized water reactor (although the first power plant connected to the grid was at Calder Hall, UK), on insistence from Admiral Hyman G. Rickover that a viable commercial plant would include none of the "crazy thermodynamic cycles that everyone else wants to build." The United States Army Nuclear Power Program operated pressurized water reactors from 1954 to 1974. Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station initially operated two pressurized water reactor plants, TMI-1 and TMI-2.〔Mosey 1990, pp. 69–71〕 The partial meltdown of TMI-2 in 1979 essentially ended the growth in new construction of nuclear power plants in the United States for two decades.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 title=50 Years of Nuclear Energy )〕 The pressurized water reactor has three new Generation III reactor evolutionary designs: the AP-1000, VVER-1200, ACPR1000+ 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「pressurized water reactor」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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