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Concept
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Résumé
The light-water reactor (LWR) is a type of thermal-neutron reactor that uses normal water, as opposed to heavy water, as both its coolant and neutron moderator; furthermore a solid form of fissile elements is used as fuel. Thermal-neutron reactors are the most common type of nuclear reactor, and light-water reactors are the most common type of thermal-neutron reactor.
There are three varieties of light-water reactors: the pressurized water reactor (PWR), the boiling water reactor (BWR), and (most designs of) the supercritical water reactor (SCWR).
After the discoveries of fission, moderation and of the theoretical possibility of a nuclear chain reaction, early experimental results rapidly showed that natural uranium could only undergo a sustained chain reaction using graphite or heavy water as a moderator. While the world's first reactors (CP-1, X10 etc.) were successfully reaching criticality, uranium enrichment began to develop from theoretical concept to practical applications in order to meet the goal of the Manhattan Project, to build a nuclear explosive.
In May 1944, the first grams of enriched uranium ever produced reached criticality in the low power (LOPO) reactor at Los Alamos, which was used to estimate the critical mass of U235 to produce the atomic bomb. LOPO cannot be considered as the first light-water reactor because its fuel was not a solid uranium compound cladded with corrosion-resistant material, but was composed of uranyl sulfate salt dissolved in water. It is however the first aqueous homogeneous reactor and the first reactor using enriched uranium as fuel and ordinary water as a moderator.
By the end of the war, following an idea of Alvin Weinberg, natural uranium fuel elements were arranged in a lattice in ordinary water at the top of the X10 reactor to evaluate the neutron multiplication factor. The purpose of this experiment was to determine the feasibility of a nuclear reactor using light water as a moderator and coolant, and clad solid uranium as fuel.
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