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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.
Mark S. Jarzemba
Nuclear Technology | Volume 124 | Number 1 | October 1998 | Pages 82-87
Technical Paper | Reprocessing | doi.org/10.13182/NT98-A2910
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A method is described to estimate the heat generation rate of various high-level waste (HLW) forms composed primarily of either a sludge (with a composition similar to that in the Hanford HLW tanks) or borosilicate glass. The main heat source is from radioactive decay and subsequent self-absorption of particles emitted from 137Cs, 90Sr, or their radioactive daughters contained in the waste form. The heat generation rate of the waste form is usually an important parameter in safety and performance assessments and will likely be a part of the specifications required for the vitrified waste. The heat generation rate depends on the size of the waste because larger waste forms will tend to absorb a greater fraction of the gamma radiation from 137mBa decays (a short-lived radioactive daughter of 137Cs). Because beta radiation from these two nuclides is short ranged (only a few tenths of a millimetre in water), assumption of complete self-absorption of beta radiation is justifiable. Previous work in this area estimated upper and lower bounds for the volume-averaged heat generation rate per litre of waste based on total (i.e., large-sized waste forms) and zero (i.e., small-sized waste forms) self-absorption of gamma radiation emitted from 137mBa. This analysis extends the previous work to more adequately estimate the heat generation rate of intermediate-sized waste forms based on the composition of the waste (either borosilicate glass or a simulated sludge), and the size of the waste as characterized by the surface-area-to-volume ratio. The analyses are based on runs of the MCNP version 4A code.