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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.
Allen L. Pitner, Brent C. Gneiting, Ronald B. Baker, Samuel L. Hecht
Nuclear Technology | Volume 105 | Number 3 | March 1994 | Pages 355-365
Technical Paper | Nuclear Fuel Cycle | doi.org/10.13182/NT94-A34936
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Four prototype irradiation tests were conducted in the Fast Flux Test Facility to investigate the performance of a 2-yr mixed-oxide fuel system using titaniumstabilized stainless steel cladding and duct material for application in a commercial-scale liquid-metal reactor plant. Three of the tests were irradiated to the point of cladding breach to establish the lifetime capability of this fuel design. Details of the fuel element design, irradiation conditions and exposures, and postirradiation measurements are presented. Comparisons between measured and calculated behavior showed basically good agreement. A conservative failure analysis of the 676-fuel-pin data set from the four test assemblies indicated a 99.9% reliability for a peak burnup capability of 90 MW .d/kg metal.