ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
August 24–27, 2026
Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
Latest Magazine Issues
Aug 2026
Jan 2026
2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
October 2026
Nuclear Technology
September 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
August 2026
Latest News
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.
Kazuo Minato, Kazuhiro Sawa, Toshio Koya, Takeshi Tomita, Akiyoshi Ishikawa, Charles A. Baldwin, William Alexander Gabbard, Charlie M. Malone
Nuclear Technology | Volume 131 | Number 1 | July 2000 | Pages 36-47
Technical Paper | Fuel Cycle and Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT00-A3103
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Postirradiation heating tests of TRISO-coated UO2 particles at 1700 and 1800°C were performed to understand fission product release behavior at accident temperatures. The inventory measurements of the individual particles were carried out before and after the heating tests with gamma-ray spectrometry to study the behavior of the individual particles. The time-dependent release behavior of 85Kr, 110mAg, 134Cs, 137Cs, and 154Eu were obtained with on-line measurements of fission gas release and intermittent measurements of metallic fission product release during the heating tests. The inventory measurements of the individual particles revealed that fission product release behavior of the individual particles was not uniform, and large particle-to-particle variations in the release behavior of 110mAg, 134Cs, 137Cs, and 154Eu were found. X-ray microradiography and ceramography showed that the variations could not be explained by only the presence or absence of cracks in the SiC coating layer. The SiC degradation may have been related to the variations.