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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.
S. R. Bierman, B. M. Durst, E. D. Clayton, B. W. Howes
Nuclear Technology | Volume 49 | Number 1 | June 1980 | Pages 40-46
Technical Paper | Nuclear Power Reactor Safety / Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT80-A32504
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Criticality experiments with Fast Test Reactor (FTR) fuel pin lattices in water and reflected with concrete have provided benchmark-type data for lattice pitches of 9.53, 12.63, 15.41, and 19.06 mm (water-to-fuel volume ratios of 3.34, 6.92,10.99, and 17.55, respectively). At these center-to-center fuel pin spacings, 554, 260, 191, and 152 fuel pins were required for criticality in rectangular lattices 28, 18, 18, and 14 fuel pins wide, respectively. This corresponds to a decrease of ∼7% from that previously observed in similar lattices with full water reflection. However, the FTR fuel pin design essentially limited the concrete reflection to only the four sides of each fuel lattice.