Thermal design of nuclear reactors

Thermal design of nuclear reactors

362 BOOK REVIEW THERMAL DESIGN OF NUCLEAR REACTORS R.H.S. Winterton (Pergamon Press, I98 I ). 192 pages. Price US $ I X This book fills a lon...

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362

BOOK REVIEW THERMAL

DESIGN

OF NUCLEAR

REACTORS

R.H.S. Winterton (Pergamon

Press,

I98

I ). 192 pages. Price US $ I X

This book fills a long felt need this side of the Atlantic for a graduate level textbook giving the basic principles of nuclear reactors from a British viewpoint (the author is at the University of Birmingham). Previous US texts such as that by Weisman, “Elements of Nuclear Reactor Design” (Elsevier, 1977), whilst excellent in their way, do naturally tend to concentrate on US-designed light water reactor types. This present text gives equal weight to the British Magnox and Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor (AGR) types from a thermal performance viewpoint. The book brings together descriptions of the various main reactor types with chapters on reactor physics, fuel element thermal design, fluid dynamics, heat transfer, core thermo-dynamics, steam cycles and safety analysis. There is even a short chapter on the thermal design aspects of fusion reactor systems. The level of treatment is relatively basic, but the book is well and concisely

0022-3 115/8 l/0000-0000/$02.75

0 198 1 North-Holland

written, bringing out the fundamentals and basic principles of each subject. Worked examples and tables of physical properties of reactor coolants are helpful additions to the text. No attempt is made to cover the materials, chemistry or structural aspects of reactor design which interact strongly with the thermal aspects, The reader will have to look elsewhere for this information. At a very reasonable price of $18 per copy it should find a ready market not only with postgraduate students at the nuclear engineering schools in this contry (UK) and with those engineering and science graduates entering the nuclear industry, but also with those people genuinely interested in understanding the basic principles of the controversial subject of nuclear power.

J.G. Collier