Prestressed safety enclosure (PSE) with metallic cushion for new or existing reactor pressure vessels

The special technology required to build the conventional types of thickwalled forged nuclear reactor pressure vessels is mastered only by a few large world-class manufactures. In order eventually to make it possible for other less established manufacturers, for example, those in newly industrialized nations, to construct nuclear RPVS or containers with large diameter for high pressures and which can tolerate large thermal gradients, an improved novel concept of a prestressed cast-iron container with multilayer shells and interlayer metallic cushions is being developed and is described in this paper. (author)