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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.
H. A. Larson, J. I. Sackett
Nuclear Technology | Volume 33 | Number 2 | April 1977 | Pages 223-230
Technical Paper | Instrument | doi.org/10.13182/NT77-A31779
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II) anomalous reactivity meter was examined to verify its feasibility as a useful device in a fast reactor system. Anomalous reactivity is calculated by comparing “measured” reactivity with that predicted by system parameters; this provides useful diagnostic, alarm, and possible plant protective functions. Examples include application during an arbitrary rise-to-power for EBR-II as well as effectiveness during an EBR-II loss-of-primary -pumping-power event. Single subassembly flow loss events may be questionable for the crude anomalous reactivity meter described here, but flow disturbances of the magnitude required for this event have been observed with a reactivity meter.