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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.
Charles E. Cartmill
Nuclear Technology | Volume 46 | Number 3 | December 1979 | Pages 422-427
Technical Paper | Nuclear Power Reactor Safety / Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT79-A32348
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A Semiscale Mod-1 blowdown heat transfer test was conducted to supply thermal-hydraulic data concerning the fluid phenomena that occur during a small break loss-of-coolant accident. While it is easily recognized that a large break suddenly releases a great volume of coolant with rapidly falling levels and pressures, emergency core injection will also occur very early, compared to a small break. There has been concern that the longer times involved in small breaks (much longer subcooled flow periods) could lead to effects worse than for large breaks. Within the scope of the testing conducted, the small break has proven to be of lower consequences than the large break.