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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.
Jean Bergeron, Michel Darrouzet, Jean-Michel Gomit, Richard Lenain, Jean-Louis Nigon, Loïck Martin-Deidier
Nuclear Technology | Volume 80 | Number 2 | February 1988 | Pages 269-281
Technical Paper | Advanced Light Water Reactor / Fission Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT88-A34051
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Undermoderated plutonium lattices in pressurized water reactors (PWRs) offer the prospect of very significant uranium savings as well as less degradation of the plutonium isotopic quality. There are, indeed, some uncertainties associated with such designs and, in 1984, an extensive program was launched to reduce these uncertainties. For the neutronic reactor physics research, the program included: (a) adaptation of codes—in particular, the cell code APOLLO and its neutronic data library; (b) an extensive experimental program (the ERASME, ICARE, and MORGANE experiments) to reduce the uncertainties in the different neutronic parameters; and (c) studies of important and specific future PWR problems. This program will allow us to qualify the neutronic codes for the undermoderated lattices in a very large range of moderator ratios and to validate future PWR designs.