It is a boiling light water reactor, with direct steam feed to the turbines, without an intervening heat-exchanger. The RBMK-1000 (Figure 2) is a Soviet designed and built graphite moderated pressure tube type reactor, using slightly enriched (2% 235U) uranium dioxide fuel. Within a 30-km radius of the power plant, the total population was between 115 000 and 135 000.įigure 1: The site of the Chernobyl nuclear power complex (modified from IA91)įigure 2: The RBMK reactor The RBMK-1000 reactor The old town of Chernobyl, which had a population of 12 500, is about 15 km to the South-east of the complex. About 3 km away from the reactor, in the new city, Pripyat, there were 49 000 inhabitants. This area of Ukraine is described as Belarussian-type woodland with a low population density. To the South-east of the plant, an artificial lake of some 22 km2, situated beside the river Pripyat, a tributary of the Dniepr, was constructed to provide cooling water for the reactors. Two more RBMK reactors were under construction at the site at the time of the accident.
The Chernobyl Power Complex, lying about 130 km north of Kiev, Ukraine, and about 20 km south of the border with Belarus (Figure 1), consisted of four nuclear reactors of the RBMK-1000 design, Units 1 and 2 being constructed between 19, while Units 3 and 4 of the same design were completed in 1983 (IA86). While the WWER type of reactor was exported to other countries, the RBMK design was restricted to republics within the Soviet Union. At the time of the Chernobyl accident, on 26 April 1986, the Soviet Nuclear Power Programme was based mainly upon two types of reactors, the WWER, a pressurised light-water reactor, and the RBMK, a graphite moderated light-water reactor.
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