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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.
L. Mergan, J. Storrer, R. Verbeke, J. P. Cordier
Nuclear Technology | Volume 46 | Number 3 | December 1979 | Pages 606-610
Technical Paper | Nuclear Power Reactor Safety / Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT79-A32372
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Safety problems have been reported from existing radwaste solidification installations (unsetting, free water, decontamination difficulties, outage, etc.). Safety requirements to be applied to such processes are proposed, first from the standpoint of installation features and equipment (i.e., proven process, simplicity, equipment choice, remote decontamination, layout, remote control, backup means) and second, as regards the properties of the solidified end products. The “volume reduction” technique, which is now available on the market (four different types of processes are mentioned), offers appreciable safety improvements and important cost savings. Given figures (experimental and calculated) indicate that solidified end product volumes are reduced by a factor of 7 to 8.5 or more.