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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.
F. Beranek, R. W. Conn
Nuclear Technology | Volume 47 | Number 3 | March 1980 | Pages 406-411
Technical Paper | Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT80-A32394
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A standard time-dependent neutron transport computer code, TDA, is modified to allow time-varying material density to calculate the neutron spectrum from exploding inertial confinement fusion pellets with ρR values of 0 to 6 g/cm2. Softening of the spectra due to neutron-fuel interactions causes a time-of-flight broadening of the neutron arrival time distribution at the chamber wall. It is found that the total number of displacements per atom (dpa) produced in a graphite first wall increases with the ρR of the pellet over the ρR range investigated because the dpa cross section is larger at lower neutron energy. However, the total helium production decreases with increasing ρR, as does the peak damage rate. Neutron-induced radioactivity generated in a 10-mg iron tamper is of the same magnitude as that produced in the rest of an entire reactor system.