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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.
Amitzur Z. Barak, Leif Blumenau, H. Branover, A. El-Boher, Ehud Greenspan, E. Spero, S. Sukoriansky
Nuclear Technology | Volume 89 | Number 1 | January 1990 | Pages 36-51
Technical Paper | Fission Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT90-A34357
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Possibilities for increasing efficiency, simplifying the design of the energy conversion system, and reducing the probability of sodium/water interaction in liquid-metal reactors (LMRs) using liquid-metal magnetohydrodynamic (LMMHD) energy conversion technology are investigated. Of the six different LMMHD power conversion systems considered, the LMMHD Rankine steam cycle offers the highest efficiency—up to 15% greater than a conventional LMR. The LMMHD Ericsson gas cycles, on the other hand, offer a significantly simplified and compact LMR plant design. All the LMMHD power conversion systems eliminate the sodium/water interaction problem. In addition to commercial applications, LMMHD energy conversion technology opens interesting new possibilities for special terrestrial as well as space applications of LMRs.