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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.
Gary L. Catchen, Amos Notea, Brian C. Campbell
Nuclear Technology | Volume 67 | Number 3 | December 1984 | Pages 463-472
Technical Paper | Analyse | doi.org/10.13182/NT84-A33503
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A highly collimated mobile gamma-ray spectrometer constructed by EG&G Idaho has been calibrated for full-energy peak efficiency. This spectrometer contains a high resolution intrinsic germanium detector, and it is designed for making activity measurements inside reactor containment buildings in high radiation fields. Peak efficiencies were determined for point sources positioned on and off the detector-collimator axis over an energy range from 80 to 2800 keV. The off-axis distributions were integrated to give the isotropic disk source efficiencies. These results were compared to those obtained from directly measuring a 24Na-doped aluminum foil “disk.” Theoretical disk source efficiencies were calculated using the point kernel approach. These results were normalized to the on-axis point source efficiencies. The procedure is self-consistent but it requires more detailed measurements in the future in order to provide accurate results. Once the measurements are made, however, the spectrometer system can then be used to accurately assay arbitrary distributions of surface activities. The method is also well suited for use in collimator design because leakage effects can be directly calculated.