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NRC approves TerraPower construction permit
Today, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced that it has approved TerraPower’s construction permit application for Kemmerer Unit 1, the company’s first deployment of Natrium, its flagship sodium fast reactor.
This approval is a significant milestone on three fronts. For TerraPower, it represents another step forward in demonstrating its technology. For the Department of Energy, it reflects progress (despite delays) for the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP). For the NRC, it is the first approval granted to a commercial reactor in nearly a decade—and the first approval of a commercial non–light water reactor in more than 40 years.
Stanley K. Widener
Nuclear Technology | Volume 72 | Number 1 | January 1986 | Pages 34-38
Technical Paper | Nuclear Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT86-A33749
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In a loss-of-coolant accident, the pressure suppression pool of a boiling water reactor swells as a steam/ air mixture is expelled from the drywell into the pool and large gas bubbles are formed beneath the surface. Many tests have been performed to quantify pool swell loads, but analytical methods have been limited in their ability to provide accurate loading estimates. With advancement of numerical methods, it is now feasible to numerically simulate the pool swell process. A finite difference solution algorithm is used to solve the transient incompressible equations for the liquid flow field. Boundary conditions at the fluid/gas interface are determined using a simplified gas flow model. The program is used to simulate several pool swell tests; comparison of the simulation with test data shows good agreement.