What physical barriers and emergency equipment protect the Duane Arnold nuclear reactor?
The Duane Arnold Energy Center is housed in a massive steel-reinforced concrete reactor containment building that is designed to withstand earthquakes, floods and extreme weather conditions, such as hurricanes and tornadoes. Duane Arnold’s containment building is actually a unique dome-within-a-dome design, which is made up of 6 and 1/2 feet of steel-reinforced concrete. The reactor vessel itself is made of solid steel and is housed within the containment building. Additionally, the uranium fuel pellets inside the reactor are all encased in zircaloy, an extremely tough metal alloy. Redundant safety shutdown systems are also available to respond in the event of an emergency. The Electric Power Research Institute, an independent, non-profit energy research group, also recently analyzed aircraft impacts on nuclear plant structures that house reactor fuel. The study results determined that the structures would not be breached, the fuel would be protected and there would be no radiation rel
