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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.
Jon L. Maienschein
Nuclear Technology | Volume 63 | Number 3 | December 1983 | Pages 426-430
Technical Paper | Chemical Processing | doi.org/10.13182/NT83-A33269
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The possibility for spark-initiated explosions in deuterium containing 0.5 to 70 mol% uranium hexafluoride at pressures up to 2.8 MPa has been investigated. No explosions were observed under these conditions, although spark-initiated formation of the reaction product beta-uranium pentafluoride occurred. The spark potential for deuterium containing 0 to 25 mol% uranium hexafluoride at pressures up to 2.8 MPa is also reported. For pure deuterium, the voltage to produce a 1-mm-long spark ranged from 10 kV at 250 kPa to 24 kV at 2.7 MPa. The addition of uranium hexafluoride increased the spark voltage sharply; at 2.3 MPa the addition of 7 mol% UF6 raised the spark voltage from 24 to 73 kV.