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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.
Yassin A. Hassan
Nuclear Technology | Volume 72 | Number 1 | January 1986 | Pages 49-58
Technical Paper | Nuclear Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT86-A33752
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Numerous issues regarding nuclear plant safety have stimulated experimental and computational efforts associated with the thermal hydraulics of reactor cooling systems. A scaled test facility of the Babcock & Wilcox raised-loop nuclear steam supply system was used to perform small break loss-of-coolant accident testing, thereby establishing a data base from which plant predictive system codes could be benchmarked. About 250 instruments were used to record the thermal-hydraulic response of the test facility during the transient, of which 36 were conductivity probes. These probes were designed and installed to determine the liquid/steam interface in the facility hot leg, reactor core vessel, and steam generator components. This study presents the data interpretation of the conductivity probe output signals for various tests. It is concluded that the “dry” state (steam) exists when the conductivity probe output voltage falls to the zero value of ∼ 0.05 V, independent of the fluid vapor temperature in which the probe is immersed. The temperature variations may significantly alter the probe output signal when immersed in single-phase water or a two-phase steam and water mixture, due to the change in electrical conductivity of the water with temperature.