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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.
D. R. Marr, D. A. Cantley, J. C. Chandler, D. C. McCurry, R. P. Omberg
Nuclear Technology | Volume 42 | Number 2 | February 1979 | Pages 133-143
Technical Paper | Thorium Fuel Cycle in a Breeder Economy / Fuel Cycle | doi.org/10.13182/NT79-A32143
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Three studies were performed to evaluate the breeding ratio of fast breeders containing thorium. In a study of a small breeder, thorium metal and thorium oxide core designs were found to have similar breeding ratios. The slight advantage exhibited by the metal design was not considered significant, since the design was based on a limited amount of thorium metal swelling data. In a study of a 1200-MW(electric) plant, a plutonium-uranium oxide design was compared to a uranium-thorium metal design. The uranium-thorium design had a lower breeding ratio but also had a negative sodium void effect. In the third study, the effect of replacing thorium oxide radial blankets with thorium metal radial blankets was evaluated. This was found to have little effect on the breeding ratio.