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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.
Kwang Won Seul, Young Seok Bang, Hho Jung Kim
Nuclear Technology | Volume 132 | Number 1 | October 2000 | Pages 152-166
Technical Paper | Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT00-A3135
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The transient following a loss-of-residual-heat-removal event during shutdown was analyzed to determine the containment closure time (CCT) to prevent uncontrolled release of fission products and the gravity-injection path and rate (GIPR) for effective core cooling using the RELAP5/MOD3.2 code. The plant conditions of Yonggwang Units 3 and 4, a pressurized water reactor (PWR) of 2815-MW(thermal) power in Korea, were reviewed, and possible event sequences were identified. From the CCT analysis for the five cases of typical plant configurations, it was estimated for the earliest CCT to be 40 min after the event in a case with a large cold-leg opening and emptied steam generators (SGs). However, the case with water-filled SGs significantly delayed the CCT through the heat removal to the secondary side. From the GIPR analysis for the six possible gravity-injection paths from the refueling water storage tank (RWST), the case with the injection point and opening on the other leg side was estimated to be the most suitable path to avoid core boiling. In addition, from the sensitivity study, it was evaluated for the plant to be capable of providing the core cooling for the long-term transient if nominal RWST water is available. As a result, these analysis methods and results will provide useful information in understanding the plant behavior and preparing the mitigation measures after the event, especially for Combustion Engineering-type PWR plants. However, to directly apply the analysis results to the emergency procedure for such an event, additional case studies are needed for a wide range of operating conditions such as reactor coolant inventory, RWST water temperature, and core decay heat rate.