nbsp   How do CANDU reactors meet high safety standards, despite having a “positive void coefficient”?
[A. CANDU Technology] [B. The Industry] [C. Cost/Benefit] [D. Safety/Liability] [E. Waste] [F. Security/Non-Proliferation] [G. Uranium] [H. Research Reactors] [I. Other R&D] [J. Further Info] It is inappropriate to judge the safety of any system based upon one of its inputs. Firstly, you must consider the combined effect of all inputs simultaneously, which (as pointed out in the previous answer) actually leads to a small feedback under power ramping. Secondly, you must consider the system response to the inputs, especially under extreme conditions. In CANDU safety analysis, the “extreme condition” for fast reactivity insertion is a large LOCA (“Loss-of-Coolant Accident), and therefore the shut-down system is engineered to meet the speed requirements of such a scenario. There are actually two completely separate (physically as well as logically) systems, each capable of fast shutdown under large-LOCA-induced reactivity, and each tripped by triple-redundancy logic from two separate detec
