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Devoted to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle including waste management, worldwide. Division specific areas of interest and involvement include uranium conversion and enrichment; fuel fabrication, management (in-core and ex-core) and recycle; transportation; safeguards; high-level, low-level and mixed waste management and disposal; public policy and program management; decontamination and decommissioning environmental restoration; and excess weapons materials disposition.
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Utility Working Conference and Vendor Technology Expo (UWC 2024)
August 4–7, 2024
Marco Island, FL|JW Marriott Marco Island
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Latest News
New company has big nuclear plans
The recent startup The Nuclear Company announced plans this month to deploy a series of nuclear reactors by the mid-2030s using a “design-once, build-many approach.”
The venture-capital-funded firm wants to use proven, licensed technology and target sites that already have some level of licensing approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build enough reactors to produce 6 gigawatts of electricity across the country.
Theron Marshall, Robert Pawelko, Robert A. Anderl, Galen R. Smolik, Richard L. Moore, Brad Merrill
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 45 | Number 4 | June 2004 | Pages 592-596
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST04-A534
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Carbon fiber composites (CFCs) are often suggested as armor material for the first wall of a fusion plasma chamber because of carbon's low atomic number, high thermal conductivity, and high melting point. However, carbon is chemically reactive in air and readily absorbs tritium. Accordingly, it is believed that during a loss-of-vacuum accident (LOVA), the CFC armor will react with the air ingress and release its absorbed tritium. The mobilization of this tritium and the carbon monoxide produced by the CFC-air chemical reaction are both safety concerns. This paper discusses the MELCOR thermal-hydraulic analysis of a simulated LOVA for the SOMBRERO fusion design. The MELCOR analysis is important because it included data from recent oxidation experiments that studied the advanced CFC NB31. A previous MELCOR analysis of a simulated SOMBRERO LOVA event suggested that the ingress of air would aggressively oxidize the CFC. While the current analysis revealed initial first-wall temperatures that exceed those of the prior analyses, the trend reversed 10 h after the onset of the LOVA. The calculated wall temperatures at the back of the blanket for the current analysis were consistently lower than those previously calculated using the older data. Accordingly, the conclusion is that a LOVA event for a fusion design similar to SOMBRERO may not be as grave as once predicted.