The S8G reactor is a naval reactor used by the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

to provide

electricity generation Electricity generation is the process of generating electric power from sources of primary energy. For electric utility, utilities in the electric power industry, it is the stage prior to its Electricity delivery, delivery (Electric power transm ...

and

propulsion Propulsion is the generation of force by any combination of pushing or pulling to modify the translational motion of an object, which is typically a rigid body (or an articulated rigid body) but may also concern a fluid. The term is derived from ...

warship A warship or combatant ship is a naval ship that is used for naval warfare. Usually they belong to the navy branch of the armed forces of a nation, though they have also been operated by individuals, cooperatives and corporations. As well as b ...

s. The S8G designation stands for: * S =

Submarine A submarine (often shortened to sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. (It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability.) The term "submarine" is also sometimes used historically or infor ...

platform * 8 = Eighth generation core designed by the contractor * G =

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) was an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in 1892, incorporated in the New York (state), state of New York and headquartered in Boston. Over the year ...

was the contracted designer

History

The S8G reactor was designed by

for use on the s. The 220 MWth S8G reactor compartment for the Ohio submarines is in diameter, long and weighs 2,750 tons.

Design

This

nuclear reactor A nuclear reactor is a device used to initiate and control a Nuclear fission, fission nuclear chain reaction. They are used for Nuclear power, commercial electricity, nuclear marine propulsion, marine propulsion, Weapons-grade plutonium, weapons ...

utilizes

natural circulation Convection is single or multiphase fluid flow that occurs spontaneously through the combined effects of material property heterogeneity and body forces on a fluid, most commonly density and gravity (see buoyancy). When the cause of the convect ...

which is capable of operating at a significant fraction of full power without reactor

coolant A coolant is a substance, typically liquid, that is used to reduce or regulate the temperature of a system. An ideal coolant has high thermal capacity, low viscosity, is low-cost, non-toxic, chemically inert and neither causes nor promotes corr ...

pump A pump is a device that moves fluids (liquids or gases), or sometimes Slurry, slurries, by mechanical action, typically converted from electrical energy into hydraulic or pneumatic energy. Mechanical pumps serve in a wide range of application ...

s. A land-based prototype of the reactor plant was built at

Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory (KAPL) is an American research and development facility based in Niskayuna, New York and dedicated to the support of the U.S. Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program. KAPL was instituted in 1946 under a contract between ...

's Kesselring Site in West Milton, New York. The prototype was used for testing and crew training throughout the 1980s. In 1994, the core was replaced with an S6W reactor, designed for the new ''Seawolf''-class submarine. The prototype is equipped with an automatic reactor fill system that can flood the reactor with borated water in the event of a

loss-of-coolant accident A loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) is a mode of failure for a nuclear reactor; if not managed effectively, the results of a LOCA could result in reactor core damage. Each nuclear plant's emergency core cooling system (ECCS) exists specifically to ...

. The S8G reactor is in use in s and has a power rating of 26.1 MW.

References

{{United States Naval reactor United States naval reactors