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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.
Josef Bestele, Klaus Trambauer, Johann-Dietrich Schubert
Nuclear Technology | Volume 117 | Number 1 | January 1997 | Pages 109-123
Technical Paper | Heat Transfer and Fluid Flow | doi.org/10.13182/NT97-A35339
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Gesellschaft für Anlagen- und Reaktorsicherheit is developing, in cooperation with the Institut für Kernenergetik und Energiesysteme, Stuttgart, the system code Analysis of Thermalhydraulics of Leaks and Transients with Core Degradation (ATHLET-CD). The code consists of detailed models of the thermal hydraulics of the reactor coolant system. This thermo-fluid dynamics module is coupled with modules describing the early phase of the core degradation, like cladding deformation, oxidation and melt relocation, and the release and transport of fission products. The assessment of the code is being done by the analysis of separate effect tests, integral tests, and plant events. The code will be applied to the verification of severe accident management procedures. The out-of-pile test CORA-13 was conducted by Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe in their CORA test facility. The test consisted of two phases, a heatup phase and a quench phase. At the beginning of the quench phase, a sharp peak in the hydrogen generation rate was observed. Both phases of the test have been calculated with the system code ATHLET-CD. Special efforts have been made to simulate the heat losses and the flow distribution in the test facility and the thermal hydraulics during the quench phase. In addition to previous calculations, the material relocation and the quench phase have been modeled. The temperature increase during the heatup phase, the starting time of the temperature escalation, and the maximum temperatures have been calculated correctly. At the beginning of the quench phase, an increased hydrogen generation rate has been calculated as measured in the experiment.