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Organized to promote the advancement of knowledge in the use of nuclear science and technologies in the aerospace application. Specialized nuclear-based technologies and applications are needed to advance the state-of-the-art in aerospace design, engineering and operations to explore planetary bodies in our solar system and beyond, plus enhance the safety of air travel, especially high speed air travel. Areas of interest will include but are not limited to the creation of nuclear-based power and propulsion systems, multifunctional materials to protect humans and electronic components from atmospheric, space, and nuclear power system radiation, human factor strategies for the safety and reliable operation of nuclear power and propulsion plants by non-specialized personnel and more.
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55th annual Nuclear News Buyers Guide now available
For American Nuclear Society members and Nuclear News subscribers, the 2024 Buyers Guide is now available in the ANS Digital Nuclear Library. The print version will be mailed along with the May “Capacity Factors/Nuclear Security” issue of Nuclear News magazine.
The corresponding ANS online Buyers Guide database is available year-round to all readers—updated with the latest products, services, and suppliers contact information for more than 600 nuclear-related companies.
Frank Wols, Jan Leen Kloosterman, Danny Lathouwers, Tim Van Der Hagen
Nuclear Technology | Volume 186 | Number 1 | April 2014 | Pages 1-16
Technical Paper | Fission Reactors | doi.org/10.13182/NT13-14
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An inherently safe thorium-breeder pebble bed reactor has great potential to improve the safety and sustainability of nuclear energy. The aim of this work is to determine the conditions under which breeding is possible in a thorium-breeder pebble bed reactor (PBR) and to present possible core designs for such a reactor. A method is developed to calculate the equilibrium core configuration of a thorium-breeder PBR, consisting of a driver channel and a breed channel. The SCALE system is used for cross-section generation and fuel depletion, and a two-dimensional (r,z)-flux profile is obtained using the DALTON neutron diffusion code. With the code scheme, the influence of several geometrical, operational, and fuel management parameters on breeding capability can be studied. Four fuel reprocessing schemes are investigated. The first scheme recycles breeder pebbles into the driver channel after some delay for additional 233Pa decay. The second scheme reprocesses the discharged breeder pebbles to make driver pebbles with higher 233U content. The third scheme also reprocesses the uranium isotopes from the discharged driver pebbles. Criticality, and thus breeding, can only be achieved in practice for this case. The fourth scheme, which adjusts the driver pebble residence time to find a critical core, is used to design a thorium-breeder PBR under practical operating conditions. A breeder reactor can even be achieved for a 150-cm core diameter, the same as for the uranium-fueled HTR-PM, but the design presented operates at a significantly lower reactor power, 71 MW(thermal) compared with 250 MW(thermal).