A person who responds to a suggestion, stimulation or other influence.
Used in a Sentence
reactor
Definitions, parts of speech, synonyms, and sentence examples for reactor.
Editorial note
Sodium, a metal that burns on contact with water, was used as the coolant for a submerged nuclear reactor!
Examples16
Definitions4
Parts of speech1
Quick take
A person who responds to a suggestion, stimulation or other influence.
Meaning at a glance
The clearest senses and uses of reactor gathered in one view.
(chemistry, engineering) A structure used to contain chemical or other reactions.
(nuclear physics) A device which uses atomic energy to produce heat.
Definitions
Core meanings and parts of speech for reactor.
noun
A person who responds to a suggestion, stimulation or other influence.
noun
(chemistry, engineering) A structure used to contain chemical or other reactions.
noun
(nuclear physics) A device which uses atomic energy to produce heat.
noun
(chemistry) A chemical substance which responds to the presence of, or contact with, another substance.
Example sentences
Sodium, a metal that burns on contact with water, was used as the coolant for a submerged nuclear reactor!
Yeah, the reactor went prompt-critical, which is pretty much the worst thing that could possibly happen.
Shutting down a nuclear reactor can be done very fast (emergency shutdown, underload shutdown) but increasing the load takes much longer.
Given the chance, it would tend to rapidly escape from liquid fuel at reactor temperatures.
And potentially the same plumbing for incoming water could be used to cool the reactor.
The accident revealed some reactor and control room design flaws plus some equipment out of service that left the operators in the dark re what state the reactor was in during the accident.
This extends the reactor period (time it takes for the power to change by a factor of exp(1)) from milliseconds to minutes.
It is the anti-nukes who perpetuate the myth that the reactor operators freaked out and just mindlessly started throwing switches, closing valves willy-nilly.
Fortunately, this reactor was moderated by water, so after the incident, all the water was gone and the nuclear reaction stopped by itself.
As long as these rookies aren't writing nuclear reactor firmware, who cares?
The current reactor designs are safe enough, let's build them now.
Or make a subcritical blanket of U-238 and some of the longer-lived radioactive elements in spent fuel rods, and put them around a fusion reactor.
Quote examples
The title specifies "reactor accident," which is intentionally narrow.
TMI was a pressured water reactor and one of the cardinal sins taught in training was never let the primary coolant system "go solid", i.e., no steam void in the pressurizer.
In the reactor normally there's two classes of neutrons present - "prompt", which are emitted directly from fission, and "delayed", which are secondary neutron emissions from decay of fission byproducts.
However, if there isn't enough control material in the core that the proportion of prompt neutrons is enough to make the reactor critical by itself then it goes "prompt critical" and exactly what happens in the article occurs.
Frequently asked questions
Short answers drawn from the clearest meanings and examples for this word.
How do you use reactor in a sentence?
Sodium, a metal that burns on contact with water, was used as the coolant for a submerged nuclear reactor!
What does reactor mean?
A person who responds to a suggestion, stimulation or other influence.
What part of speech is reactor?
reactor is commonly used as noun.