The RBMK is a class of graphite-moderated nuclear power reactor designed and built by the Soviet Union. It is somewhat like a Boiling water reactor as water boils in the pressure tubes. It is one of two reactor types to be developed in the Soviet Union during the 1970s, the other being the VVER reactor. The name refers to its design where instead of a large steel pressure vessel surrounding the entire core, the core is surrounded by a cylindrical annular steel tank inside a concrete vault and each fuel assembly is enclosed in an individual 8 cm (inner) diameter pipe. The channels also contain the coolant, and are surrounded by graphite.
View of the Smolensk Nuclear Power Plant site, with three operational RBMK-1000 reactors. A fourth reactor was cancelled before completion.
Reactor hall of the RBMK-1500 at Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant, Lithuania—the upper biological shield (UBS) lies several meters below the floor of the reactor hall. There are no channel covers on the fuel channels of the reactor; the control rod drives are below the colored covers.
RBMK reactor with fuel channel covers
RBMK reactor fuel rod holder Uranium fuel pellets, fuel tubes, distancing armature, graphite bricks.
Graphite-moderated reactor
A graphite-moderated reactor is a nuclear reactor that uses carbon as a neutron moderator, which allows natural uranium to be used as nuclear fuel.
Diagram of a nuclear reactor using graphite as a moderator
S.R. Sapirie, Senator Albert Gore Sr, Senator Lyndon Johnson and Dr. John Swartout looking at a model of a graphite reactor at Oak Ridge National Lab, on October 19, 1958.
