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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.
Yigal Ronen, Melvin J. Leibson
Nuclear Technology | Volume 79 | Number 1 | October 1987 | Pages 20-34
Technical Paper | Fission Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT87-A16002
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In the multispectrum high convertor pressurized water reactor, the core is divided into several regions with a different moderator-to-fuel (M/F) volume ratio specified in each region. This results in a variation of the neutron spectrum in the reactor. As the average M/F ratio is low (tight-lattice configuration), the resulting spectrum in the reactor is hard and a high conversion ratio can thus be achieved. In addition, the difference in the M/F ratio allows for a better negative reactivity void response as compared to a similar monospectrum reactor. Analysis and optimization of such a reactor concept are presented and discussed.