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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.
Gerhard J. Schlosser, Wolf-Dieter Krebs, Peter Urban
Nuclear Technology | Volume 102 | Number 1 | April 1993 | Pages 54-67
Technical Paper | Mixed-Oxide Fuel / Nuclear Fuel Cycle | doi.org/10.13182/NT93-A34802
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Germany has adopted the strategy of a closed fuel cycle using reprocessing and recycling. The central issue today is plutonium recycling by the use of U-Pu mixed-oxide (MOX) in pressurized water reactors (PWRs) and boiling water reactors (BWRs). The design of MOX fuel assemblies and fuel management in MOX-containing cores are strongly influenced by the nuclear properties of the plutonium isotopes. Optimized MOX fuel assembly designs for PWRs currently use up to three types of MOX fuel rods having different plutonium contents with natural uranium or uranium tailings as carrier material but without burnable absorbers. The MOX fuel assembly designs for BWRs use four to six rod types with different plutonium contents and Gd2O3/UO2 burnable absorber rods. Both the PWR and the BWR designs attain good burnup equivalence and compatibility with uranium fuel assemblies. High flexibility exists in the loading schemes relative to the position and number of MOX fuel assemblies in the reloads and in the core as a whole. The Siemens experience with MOX fuel assemblies is based on the insertion of 318 MOX fuel assemblies in eight PWRs and 168 in BWRs and pressurized heavy water reactors so far. The primary operating results include information on the cycle length, power distribution, reactivity coefficients, and control rod worth of cores containing MOX fuel assemblies. Normal levels of reliability and safety can be maintained during reactor operation even with higher MOX fuel fractions, fissile contents, and burnup.