Containment and cooling

In order to protect the public from the release of radiation, reactors employ several barriers to contain radioactive materials. The design and number of these barriers will vary between reactor designs but for water cooled reactors there are four barriers to release:

• The fuel matrix
• The fuel cladding
• The boundary of the reactor cooling system
• The containment system

The function of the emergency core cooling system is to remove heat from the reactor core in the event of an accident. These systems can also be used to help stop the nuclear reaction in the core with the addition of reactor poisons.