3. Other sectors

The PWR is the most widely used reactor worldwide, both commercially and militarily, and also the one with the most accumulated experience. It still has considerable development potential. The move towards new technologies can only come from new requirements. Nevertheless :

• Liquid metal cooling

  A few projects have been carried out.

  • The Seawolf (USA) was equipped with an epithermal neutron reactor cooled with liquid sodium, which did not sail much due to a leak in a steam superheater. Highly contested by the U.S. Navy, which had little use for liquid sodium in a marine environment, it was soon abandoned in favor of the PWR-equipped Nautilus (cf. , § 1.2.1).

  • The Russian Alpha class submarine, of...