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Conference Spotlight
2026 Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
August 24–27, 2026
Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
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Nuclear Science and Engineering
October 2026
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September 2026
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August 2026
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LLNL, Ampera partner to develop thorium-based TRISO fuel
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has formed a strategic partnership with Ampera to develop the company’s nuclear fuel concept through a project named THUNDER, for Thorium Unimodal Droplet Ejection for Reactors.
The focus of THUNDER is fabricating TRISO made with kernels of thorium rather than the usual uranium. LLNL and Ampera will evaluate and optimize liquid metal–jetting technology to produce highly uniform, spherical kernels of thorium-232 for later processing into TRISO fuel.
Technical Session|Space Nuclear Propulsion
Monday, May 5, 2025|1:00–2:40PM CDT|SPOC B (Space & Rocket Center)
Session Chair:
Jason Cassibry (Univ. Alabama, Huntsville)
Track Organizer:
Harold Gerrish (NASA Marshall Space Flight Center)
To access paper attachments, you must be logged in and registered for the meeting.
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Preliminary Study of Fission Product Entrainment Impact on a Centrifugal Nuclear Thermal Rocket
1:00–1:25PM CDT
Mitchell Schroll (Univ. Alabama, Hunstville), Robert Frederick Jr. (Univ. Alabama, Hunstville), L. Dale Thomas (Univ. Alabama, Hunstville)
Paper
Hydrogen Flow and Heat Transfer Enhancements for the Centrifugal Nuclear Thermal Rocket
1:25–1:50PM CDT
Bahram Nassersharif (Univ. Rhode Island), Joel Aubin (Univ. Rhode Island), Nicholas Caito (Univ. Rhode Island), Nicholas Colavecchio (Univ. Rhode Island), Nicholas DeFranzo (Univ. Rhode Island)
Design and Analysis of an Internal Gas Turbine for the Centrifugal Nuclear Thermal Rocket (CNTR)
1:50–2:15PM CDT
Bahram Nassersharif (Univ. Rhode Island), Andrik Puentes (Univ. Rhode Island), Lucas Murphy (Univ. Rhode Island), Mycarthy Newton (Univ. Rhode Island), Michael Kenney (Univ. Rhode Island), Shamar Morgan (Univ. Rhode Island)
Simulating Flow and Heat Transfer Properties of Centrifugal Nuclear Thermal Propulsion Reactor
2:15–2:40PM CDT
Joshua Naudet (Ohio State), Spencer Christian (Ohio State), Calvin Chandler (Ohio State)
