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High-temperature plumbing and advanced reactors
The use of nuclear fission power and its role in impacting climate change is hotly debated. Fission advocates argue that short-term solutions would involve the rapid deployment of Gen III+ nuclear reactors, like Vogtle-3 and -4, while long-term climate change impact would rely on the creation and implementation of Gen IV reactors, “inherently safe” reactors that use passive laws of physics and chemistry rather than active controls such as valves and pumps to operate safely. While Gen IV reactors vary in many ways, one thing unites nearly all of them: the use of exotic, high-temperature coolants. These fluids, like molten salts and liquid metals, can enable reactor engineers to design much safer nuclear reactors—ultimately because the boiling point of each fluid is extremely high. Fluids that remain liquid over large temperature ranges can provide good heat transfer through many demanding conditions, all with minimal pressurization. Although the most apparent use for these fluids is advanced fission power, they have the potential to be applied to other power generation sources such as fusion, thermal storage, solar, or high-temperature process heat.1–3
Ubaldo R. Carretta, Ettore Minardi
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 14 | Number 2 | September 1988 | Pages 320-328
Technical Paper | Plasma Engineering | doi.org/10.13182/FST88-A20264
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The conditions for the existence and accessibility of ignited or subignited deuterium-tritium states are discussed in terms of the performance of the thermonuclear device in tritiumless discharges. The discussion includes the effects of the thermal instability of both the marginally igniting states and the nonstationary states in the start-up phase. These effects are an integral part of the problem of the accessibility to ignition under reliable conditions. Typical examples taken from the next generation of igniting tokamaks are discussed. The necessity of allowing sufficient excursion of the plasma column for a stable drive to ignition by feedback on the vertical field is underlined.
