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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.
Hasna J. Khan, Hsiang S. Cheng, Upendra S. Rohatgi
Nuclear Technology | Volume 112 | Number 2 | November 1995 | Pages 155-168
Technical Paper | Nuclear Reactor Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT95-A35170
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Analysis has been performed for an anticipated transient without scram (ATWS) event in a simplified boiling water reactor. Loss of feedwater heating initiated this ATWS, which was mitigated by the insertion of fine-motion control rods. Calculations with RAMONA-4B code show that reactivity insertion, through increase in subcooling to the core, results in a rise in the core power to a new equilibrium condition. Insertion of fine-motion control rods from the bottom of the core is found to shift the peak of the axial power distribution to the upper part of the core until eventual shutdown of the reactor occurs.