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NRC approves TerraPower construction permit
Today, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced that it has approved TerraPower’s construction permit application for Kemmerer Unit 1, the company’s first deployment of Natrium, its flagship sodium fast reactor.
This approval is a significant milestone on three fronts. For TerraPower, it represents another step forward in demonstrating its technology. For the Department of Energy, it reflects progress (despite delays) for the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP). For the NRC, it is the first approval granted to a commercial reactor in nearly a decade—and the first approval of a commercial non–light water reactor in more than 40 years.
W. R. Marcum, T. V. Holschuh, T. K. Howard
Nuclear Technology | Volume 190 | Number 3 | June 2015 | Pages 359-375
Technical Paper | Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT14-61
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An exact solution for a heterogeneous, discontinuous wide beam is developed herein having three unique boundary condition (BC) sets. These BC sets were chosen based on their relevance to plate-type–fueled reactors. This solution, with respective BC sets, contributes new insights into the field of engineering mechanics as applied within the nuclear engineering discipline. Herein, the exact solution is validated under a set of test cases. A comparison is then made against other relations that have been developed to provide similar engineering insights. Last, the solution is applied toward a presently relevant engineering problem regarding the design of a monolithic plate-type fuel. The outcome of this work provides a solution form for the computation of out-of-plane deflection of a heterogeneous, discontinuous wide beam that can be easily applied in engineering mechanics and is flexible in use.