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High-Temperature Reactors
Published in William J. Nuttall, Nuclear Renaissance, 2022
The original Russia-oriented GT-MHR programme planned for a 600 MWth/293 MWe plant to be constructed at Seversk in Russia (a city known in the Soviet era as Tomsk 7). Mabrouk Methnani of the IAEA reported, in 2002, that the GT-MHR project team was aiming to finalise the design by 2005 and to construct the first plant by 2009 [93]. History shows this did not take place. By 2013, General Atomics had new ambitions for the GT-MHR. World Nuclear News reported in August 2013 that General Atomics had revised the GT-MHR into a new concept known as the Energy Multiplier Module, or EM2, essentially a 265 MWe (500 MW thermal) helium-cooled fast-neutron HTR [123]. It was proposed to operate the EM2 at 850°C. At the time of writing in April 2021, General Atomics continues to promote the EM2 design, but in October 2020 the company announced another HTR concept also based upon a fast-neutron spectrum and helium Brayton cycle cooling, but in now geared towards smaller power demands [124]. The new concept is a development with French nuclear company Framatome. The new reactor proposal is known as the Fast Modular Reactor (FMR) and it is designed to produce 50 Me placing it, if built, in roughly the same market position as the 60 MWe NuScale Power SMR design discussed in Chapter 6.
Preconceptual Design of Multifunctional Gas-Cooled Cartridge Loop for the Versatile Test Reactor: Instrumentation and Measurement—Part II
Published in Nuclear Science and Engineering, 2022
Piyush Sabharwall, Kevan Weaver, N. K. Anand, Chris Ellis, Xiaodong Sun, Hangbok Choi, Di Chen, Rich Christensen, Brian M. Fronk, Joshua Gess, Yassin Hassan, Igor Jovanovic, Annalisa Manera, Victor Petrov, Rodolfo Vaghetto, Silvino Balderrama-Prieto, Adam J. Burak, Milos Burger, Alberto Cardenas-Melgar, Daniel Orea, Reynaldo Chavez, Byunghee Choi, Londrea Garrett, Genevieve L. Gaudin, Noah Sutton, Ken William Ssennyimba, Josh Young
The Versatile Test Reactor (VTR) is a 300-MW(thermal), sodium-cooled, metallic-fueled, pool-type fast test reactor currently being developed in the United States under the direction of the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Energy. The VTR objective is to enable accelerated testing of advanced reactor fuels and materials required for fast neutron spectrum advanced reactor technologies. Part I in this paper series summarizes the design efforts of a gas-cooled cartridge loop (GCL), which uses the General Atomics (GA) Energy Multiplier Module concept as a reference gas-cooled fast reactor (GFR) design.1 In this paper, we focus more directly on the instrumentation and on innovative techniques to measure the thermophysical properties of the materials within the GCL. The integrated effort is led by Idaho National Laboratory (INL). General Atomics is the industrial partner in charge of providing GCL functional requirements and critical irradiation data needs for advancing GFR technologies and developing a preliminary conceptual design for a GCL. University partners include Texas A&M University (TAMU), University of Michigan, Oregon State University (OSU), University of Idaho (UI), and University of Houston (UH), and they support the design of the GCL by investigating the thermal-hydraulic transport of fission gases in the GFR fission product venting system, gamma heating within the cartridge, thermal-hydraulic behavior of the GCL, materials emissivity, and helium impurity for fuel failure detection, respectively. The integration among various organizations is shown in Part I (Ref. 1).
Fabrication and Characterization of Zirconium Silicide for Application to Gas-Cooled Fast Reactors
Published in Nuclear Technology, 2022
George M. Jacobsen, Hangbok Choi, James A. Turso, Amanda M. Johnsen, Andrew J. Bascom, Xialu Wei, Eugene A. Olevsky
General Atomics (GA) has been developing zirconium silicide (Zr3Si2) as a candidate reflector material for the Energy Multiplier Module (EM2) and Fast Modular Reactor (FMR). The EM2 is a 500-MW(thermal) Gas-cooled Fast Reactor (GFR) with helium coolant operating at 550°C to 850°C (Ref. 1). The FMR is a 50 MW(electric) GFR being developed for neat-term deployment. The reflector materials are used in these reactors to improve the neutron economy by scattering neutrons back to the core. In the fast reactor, light reflector materials result in complicated problems in managing local power peaking.2 By using a heavy reflector like Zr3Si2, the power peaking around the core periphery is minimized through reduced neutron moderation. For the EM2, as an example, the estimated reduction of the peak power density is ~20% with the Zr3Si2 reflector when compared to the core with a Be2C reflector. In addition, the neutron economy of Zr3Si2 is superior to other potential reflectors such as zirconium carbide or Type 316 stainless steel.3
Performance Analysis of Silicon Carbide Composite Clad Uranium Carbide Fuel for a Long-Life Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor Under Normal Operation—Part I: Design Criteria and Material Data
Published in Nuclear Technology, 2020
Hangbok Choi, Robert W. Schleicher, John Bolin
The energy multiplier module (EM2) is a 500-MW(thermal) gas-cooled fast reactor1 (GFR). The EM2 fuel consists of uranium carbide (UC) pellets enclosed in silicon carbide (SiC) composite cladding, collectively called SiGA,TM i.e., SiC technologies developed by General Atomics (GA). This combination of materials enables a compact reactor core that can operate at high temperature and sustain a high neutron irradiation. By transmuting uranium fuel and releasing gaseous fission products, the core has a fuel cycle exceeding 30 years without refueling, shuffling, or using burnable poisons, which results in a peak fuel burnup of ~300 GWd/tonne heavy metal (HM). The high temperature and high burnup operation of the reactor system provide a foundation for great economic benefit; however, it also imposes technical challenges on the fuel integrity.