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2025 ANS Annual Conference
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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
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
H. Oka, M. Nishikawa, T. Takeishi, J. Yamaguchi, M. Nishi, T. Hayashi, K. Kobayashi
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 41 | Number 3 | May 2002 | Pages 658-662
Safety and Safety System | Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Tritium Science and Technology Tsukuba, Japan November 12-16, 2001 | doi.org/10.13182/FST02-A22669
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The system effect of tritium arises from the interaction of tritium in the gas phase with water on the surface of piping materials. It has been reported that the system effect can be quantified by applying the serial reactor model to the piping system, connection of perfect mixed flow type reactors and plug flow type reactors, and that adsorption and isotope exchange reactions play the main roles in the trapping of tritium. In this study we made a calculation code of the system effect using the serial reactor model where 304SS, aluminum, copper or graphite is used for the piping material. Comparison of the calculated value using this code gives the good agreement with the experimental data taken at the cooperative experiment using a box made of stainless steel type 304 in Tritium Processing Laboratory in JAERI and that is called as the Caisson. It is observed that the isotope exchange reaction between tritiated water in the air and surface water on the 304SS surface controls the tritium trapping performance at the room temperature although HTO/HT ratio is around 0.1 in this experiment.
