Reactor safety assessment is a highly specialized topic which, in many of its aspects, depends heavily on a satisfactory understanding of a wide variety of heat transfer phenomena. It is the aim of the paper to air some of these problems outside the ranks of the reactor safety specialists. Typical liquid-cooled reactors, their operating characteristics, and some heat transfer aspects of their safety assessment are discussed: for example, transient boiling, quenching of hot surfaces and thermal explosions.
