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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.
W. F. Naughton, M. J. Cenko, S. H. Levine, W. F. Witzig
Nuclear Technology | Volume 23 | Number 3 | September 1974 | Pages 256-272
Technical Paper | Fuel | doi.org/10.13182/NT74-A15918
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A core management program has been effected for TRIGA reactors (TRICOM) which utilizes three basic types of information: (a) keff as a function of burnup, (b) relative changes in power fractions of fuel elements as a function of core burnup, and (c) reactivity worth curves for fissile isotopes and neutron absorbers. TRICOM has been programmed for an IBM system/360 using the FORTRAN IV language. Experimental measurements have been made with 8.5 wt% uranium and a mixture of 8.5 and 12 wt% uranium-fueled cores, and the results have been compared with those calculated by TRICOM. The analytical and experimental results compare favorably in all cases, particularly when some of the experimentally measured parameters are substituted for those derived theoretically. A significant result of this study program has been the development of an improved refueling scheme for The Pennsylvania State University’s Breazeale Nuclear Reactor which replaces depleted 8.5 wt% fuel with 12 wt% uranium fuel.