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MARVEL team shares lessons learned through microreactor development
On June 1 at the American Nuclear Society’s Annual Conference in Denver, Colo., a team from Idaho National Laboratory presented a session titled “Lessons Learned from MARVEL Reactor Fabrication.” The presentation highlighted challenges that arose as they moved from design to manufacturing and assembly, with a focus on reactor part fabrication, Stirling engine implementation, and reactivity control system development.
Karl Richter, Jean Gueugnon, Gerard Kramer, Carlo Sari, Paul Werner
Nuclear Technology | Volume 70 | Number 3 | September 1985 | Pages 401-407
Technical Paper | Nuclear Fuel | doi.org/10.13182/NT85-A15966
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
For fabrication of MX-type (M = actinides; X = carbon and/or nitrogen) advanced fuels, for example, uranium-plutonium carbides for the fast breeder, the carbothermic reduction process of oxides, with subsequent crushing and ballmilling of the reaction product, pressing, and sintering has been generally adopted. A new fabrication procedure, the direct pressing (DP) method, based on the carbothermic reduction process, is presented, however, without intermediate comminution. The fuel is directly processed to pellets. MX powder handling and dust generation within the working area are avoided. The principle and advantages of the new fabrication procedure are reported. The feasibility of the DP method has been demonstrated in laboratory scale on (U,Pu)C fuel pellet preparation. Fuel data compared with the conventional method are given.