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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.
Khaled Meftah, Arthur E. Ruggles
Nuclear Technology | Volume 154 | Number 3 | June 2006 | Pages 328-334
Technical Paper | Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT06-A3737
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A scaled model boiling water reactor (SMBWR) uses water at 0.095 MPa in a transparent heated channel 0.5 m in length with four electrical heated fuel simulator rods. The axial void profile in the channel is measured using conductivity probes. The boiling channel exhibits bubbly and churn flow regimes. In the present study, the bubbly-churn regime transition is investigated using the variance, kurtosis, and skewness of the probability density function (pdf) derived from the conductivity measurements. The positioning of five conductivity sensors along the boiling water channel allows examination of the gradual changes in the flow regime characteristics. The results indicate it is possible to detect the bubbly-to-churn flow regime transition using the pdf distribution attributes of the conductivity probes.