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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.
G. Oliva, G. Palmiotti, M. Salvatores, L. Tondinelli
Nuclear Technology | Volume 37 | Number 3 | March 1978 | Pages 340-352
Technical paper | Fuel | doi.org/10.13182/NT78-A31999
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The elimination of transuranium (TRU) elements by neutron absorption has been investigated in an actual power liquid-metal fast breeder reactor (LMFBR) (of the Superphenix type). Special fuel elements containing TRU oxides were considered in different core locations. The effects on design parameters have also been evaluated. The results show that the advantages of TRU elimination by means of LMFBRs, compared with using a thermal reactor, consist mainly of the small perturbation of the integral properties and design parameters of the reactor for the large amount of TRU that can be introduced. However, from the point of view of the TRU transmutation reaction rates, thermal reactors seem to be better. The choice of a compromise between the variation of design parameters and the TRU amount to be transmutated depends on the actual reactor design.