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Second round of Launch Pad selections includes eight newcomers
The National Reactor Innovation Center at Idaho National Laboratory has announced 13 project selections across 12 companies for the Nuclear Energy Launch Pad, a Department of Energy–led program that integrates reactor and fuel facility authorization, testing, and deployment support for private nuclear developers.
The Launch Pad emerged from the Reactor Pilot Program and Fuel Line Pilot Program.
According to INL, projects selected include reactor development and nuclear fuel cycle advancements, including fabrication, enrichment, and conversion technologies.
T. Dash, B. B. Nayak, M. Abhangi, R. Makwana, S. Vala, S. Jakhar, C. V. S. Rao, T. K. Basu
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 65 | Number 2 | March-April 2014 | Pages 241-247
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST13-663
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Because of their desirable structural properties, WC, WC+B4C, and WC + TiC are possible materials for use in plasma-facing components of fusion reactors like tokamaks. In this work, seven different compositions of WC-W2C composites have been prepared (30 to 50 at. % C) by an arc plasma melting technique followed by furnace cooling. Efforts have been made to produce a composite that is very hard and tough and that has a high neutron absorbing capacity by adding B4C and TiC (5 to 15 wt% each) to the starting WC powder. Microstructures of the composites were studied by field emission scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. Multiphasic structures of the composites exhibited an absence of pores. The WC + TiC and WC + B4C composites showed improvements in microhardness over pure WC. Typical samples of WC-W2C, WC + B4C, and WC + TiC have been characterized by X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller techniques for analysis and correlation of material properties. When irradiated with 14-MeV D-T neutrons, it was observed that the pure WC melt-cast product exhibited a linear neutron absorption coefficient of 0.172 cm−1. The absorption coefficient was found to be a maximum (0.255 cm−1) for 5 wt% B4C added to WC as against Type 316LN stainless steel, which showed a value of 0.078 cm−1.