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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.
Noriaki Takahashi, Hideaki Morishita, Naomichi Kanegae, Akihiro Niimi
Nuclear Technology | Volume 86 | Number 1 | July 1989 | Pages 7-16
Technical Paper | Fission Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT89-A34275
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
To reduce the cost of fast breeder reactor plants, advanced subsystem concepts are studied. The material quantities of the fuel handling system constituent subsystems are estimated and those with the largest quantities are selected for improvement. The advanced subsystem concepts studied include in-vessel fuel storage while cooling, an in-vessel fuel transfer machine with variable-reach arm, and a halfswing hinged-track fuel transfer machine. A significant reduction of overall system material quantity is promised by a suitable combination of the proposed advanced concepts.