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NRC approves TerraPower construction permit
Today, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced that it has approved TerraPower’s construction permit application for Kemmerer Unit 1, the company’s first deployment of Natrium, its flagship sodium fast reactor.
This approval is a significant milestone on three fronts. For TerraPower, it represents another step forward in demonstrating its technology. For the Department of Energy, it reflects progress (despite delays) for the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP). For the NRC, it is the first approval granted to a commercial reactor in nearly a decade—and the first approval of a commercial non–light water reactor in more than 40 years.
Keith Searson, Fabrice Fleurot, Andrew Cooper, Pat Cowan
Nuclear Technology | Volume 175 | Number 1 | July 2011 | Pages 259-263
Technical Paper | Special Issue on the 16th Biennial Topical Meeting of the Radiation Protection and Shielding Division / Radiation Transport and Protection | doi.org/10.13182/NT11-A12297
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A computer-aided design (CAD) import and tracking system, OiNC, has been developed that is currently being incorporated into the MONK and MCBEND criticality and shielding codes. The system enables analysts to take advantage of the advanced geometry modeling capabilities provided by the solid CAD modelers Autodesk Inventor and Solidworks. Various tracking acceleration techniques are implemented in order to reduce calculation time, including the full or partial automatic conversion of the CAD model to constructive solid geometry (CSG) form. For the criticality benchmark model detailed here, the overall calculation run time for a CAD-based geometry was found to be just 14% longer than an equivalent text-based CSG model. OiNC uses analytical surface descriptions, with full NURBS support, avoiding the approximations and problems associated with meshing. However, meshed models can still be imported and tracked, enabling shielding and criticality calculations to be performed, for example, on impact simulated finite element models.