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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.
Claudio Ronchi, Jacques van de Laar, Hubert Blank
Nuclear Technology | Volume 68 | Number 1 | January 1985 | Pages 48-65
Technical Paper | Nuclear Fuel | doi.org/10.13182/NT85-A33566
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A set of calculations has been carried out with the EUGES-ARIES code system to study the swelling performance limits of a sodium-bonded mixed-carbide pin design, which was recently proposed for the introduction of advanced fuels into liquid-metal fast breeder reactors. The results indicate that a useful peak burnup of 150000 MWd/ton can be attained with pin diametral plastic deformations up to 2%, under optimal irradiation conditions. However, probable thermal disturbances in the fuel and cladding mechanical deterioration due to steel carburization still represent a risk source for pin failure. A further improvement of the swelling performance of mixed carbides is therefore needed to refine the examined pin design for future full-scale reactor applications.