VERFAHREN ZUR BESCHICKUNG EINES KUGELHAUFENKERNREAKTORS UND DAFUER GEEIGNETE KUGELHAUFENREAKTOREN

A ball-bed (pebble-bed) nuclear reactor, instead of having fuel elements more or less continuously withdrawn and new or reconstituted fuel elements more or less continuously reintroducted, is initially partly filled with fuel balls of which two-thirds have a fissionable material content 12% below and the upper third 24% higher than the average content. This filling meets the requirements of criticality in order to begin operation. Thereafter, fuel balls are added slowly, a few hundred per day, having 150 to 250% of the average fissionable material content of the initial loading, thus preserving the criticality requirments, while keeping the temperature within safe limits until the reactor cavern is filled. Thereafter, the reactor is shut down, cooled off, pressure relieved and emptied, the last step typically from above. An ordered array of the fuel balls in regular layers avoids excess pressure loads on the reflector over the life time of the filling. For a random packing of the balls a cross-section of the cavern that increases somewhat from the bottom upwards also avoids the excess pressure loads on the reflector.