A4W reactor

The A4W reactor is a naval reactor used by the United States Navy to propel warships and generate onboard electricity.

The A4W designation stands for:

A = Aircraft carrier platform
4 = Contractor's fourth core design generation
W = Westinghouse, the contracted designer

These nuclear fission pressurized water reactors (PWRs) were jointly designed by Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory and Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory^[1] and built by Westinghouse Electric Company. Their reactor cores are expected to operate for about 20 years.^[1] The only ships to use these nuclear reactors are the Nimitz class supercarriers, which have two reactors rated at 550MWt each. These each generate enough steam to produce an 100 MW electricity supply plus 140,000 shaft horsepower (104 MW).^[2]

References

1 2 "A4W". US Navy Propulsion Systems. Federation of American Scientists. 1999-02-27. Archived from the original on 25 September 2006. Retrieved 2006-10-16. current cores for the NIMITZ Class aircraft carrier ... last on average about 20 years
↑ "US Navy Propulsion Systems". Federation of American Scientists. Archived from the original on 9 October 2006. Retrieved 2006-10-16. power per reactor ... 140,000 shp

United States Naval Reactors

Aircraft carrier	A1W A2W A3W A4W A1B

Cruiser	C1W

Destroyer	D1G D2G

Submarine	S1C S1G S1W S2C S2G S2W S2Wa S3G S3W S4G S4W S5G S5W S6G S6W S7G S8G S9G S1B

List of United States Naval reactors

http://mragheb.com/NPRE%20402%20ME%20405%20Nuclear%20Power%20Engineering/Nuclear%20Marine%20Propulsion.pdf (correcting for the power output from 500 megawatts to 105.)

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