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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.
W. D. Fletcher, D. D. Malinowski
Nuclear Technology | Volume 28 | Number 3 | March 1976 | Pages 356-373
Technical Paper | Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT76-A31518
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Service exposure has been accrued in 66 steam generators tubed with Inconel-600. Localized corrosion coincident with sludge deposition in low flow-velocity zones has been observed. Inter granular cracking has been attributed to stress-assisted caustic corrosion resulting from hydrolysis of condenser inleakage contaminants or sodium phosphate reactions with feedwater corrosion products. Wall thinning or wastage is attributed to the formation of high-concentration sodium phosphate solutions under the sludge blanket. The resistance of Inconel-600 to these corrosion mechanisms is comparable or superior to that of other candidate tube materials. The experience gathered points strongly to environmental and thermal/hydraulic factors rather than materials considerations as the predominant influence on the occurrence of localized corrosion. Mechanical modifications designed to reduce the number of tubes in zones of low flow-velocity are being installed into operating units; current production units have incorporated design features including a flow distribution baffle to improve the thermal/ hydraulic conditions over prior models. Rigorous control of feedwater impurities is being applied to reduce the probability of creating a corrosive environment in the steam generators.