eli5 How does a nuclear reactor in a nuclear power plant work?
In: Engineering
Nuclear reactors use special metals that that give off a strange heat. This strange heat can make us very sick if we stay around it too long.
The more of this metal that we put together the hotter it will get as the metal heat makes itself heat up and that makes it go even hotter and hotter. And it can get so hot that it will eventually explode if there’s enough of it in a small enough space.
Nuclear reactors use a controlled form of this. carbon rods made of the same stuff as pencil lead are used to absorb and control the release of this strange heat. These are called control rods. And in this example the special metal is uranium
The strange heat is used to heat up water, The water also helps control the temperature of the special metal so it doesn’t get too hot.
This water is moved in a series of coils to heat up a separate set of coils of water. This is important to make sure that none of the water that’s been in contact with the strange heat leaves the system.
This second coil of water also gets really really hot. And that is used to make steam turbines spin. The steam turbines turn the spin into electrical energy.
This is done with magnets, The spinning part of the turbine spins magnets around inside coils of wire, This produces electricity.
Now these second coils of water are also really hot even after they’ve made the steam turbine spin. To be reused it needs to cool down A lot of plants will use a third set of coiled water tubes to exchange heat again. These coils use outside water from something like a river or the ocean. Cold water comes in it gets warmed up and then gets pumped back out into the river or ocean.
This three coil system of water make sure none of the strange heat leaves the power plant.
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