2. Sodium's impact on RNR technology

2.1 Benefits of sodium

Sodium has remarkable physical characteristics that make it well suited to use in an RNR (table 1 ), including a wide temperature range in its liquid state, enabling it to be used at normal atmospheric pressure, very good thermal conductivity (around 100 times that of water), and a viscosity and density at 400°C close to those of water at 20°C. This equivalence enables hydraulic simulations of liquid sodium with plexiglass models using liquid water to be validated. This equivalence makes it possible to validate hydraulic simulations of liquid sodium with Plexiglas models using liquid water. Vapor pressure is low: under normal operating conditions, aerosol production remains very limited. In addition...