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Norway’s Halden reactor takes first step toward decommissioning
The government of Norway has granted the transfer of the Halden research reactor from the Institute for Energy Technology (IFE) to the state agency Norwegian Nuclear Decommissioning (NND). The 25-MWt Halden boiling water reactor operated from 1958 to 2018 and was used in the research of nuclear fuel, reactor internals, plant procedures and monitoring, and human factors.
Theodore A. Parish, Donald E. Palmrose
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 15 | Number 2 | March 1989 | Pages 193-203
Technical Paper | Tritium System | doi.org/10.13182/FST89-A25356
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Mathematical modeling and numerical calculations have been performed to examine methods for exploiting recoil effects to increase the release of tritium from solid lithium compounds whose release rates are limited by the diffusion process. The basic concept is to employ the kinetic energy of the tritons from the exothermic 6Li(n,4He)T reaction in order to move them out of the low-diffusivity region where they are born and into a thin, high-diffusivity region from which they can more easily migrate for eventual removal by a stream of purge gas. In the recoil-enhanced release approach, the lithium-containing blanket particles would consist of coated spheres. The inner region of the spherical particles would have a small diameter (30 to 40 µm) and would contain the lithium compound for tritium production. The outer region of the spherical particles would consist of a thin, highly diffusive coating whose thickness would be approximately one-half the range of a 2.7-MeV triton in the coating material. The tritium release rates, concentration profiles, and inventories for both coated and uncoated particles have been calculated. Analytical expressions for the tritium concentration in a coated spherical particle were derived at steady state. Time-dependent concentrations were obtained by numerically solving the equation for tritium diffusion. Tritium concentration profiles are presented parametrically in terms of dimensionless space and time variables and in terms of the ratio of the tritium diffusion coefficients for the inner and outer materials of a spherical particle. Calculations of tritium diffusion were performed f or lithium-compound-to-coating diffusion coefficient ratios of 1.0, 0.5, 0.1, and 0.05. The results indicate that, at steady state, the tritium inventory is directly proportional to the diffusion coefficient in the coating and the time to reach steady state is reduced as the diffusion coefficient ratio is decreased. Recoil-enhanced tritium release should be of most interest for fusion applications using lithium aluminate at relatively low temperatures. Several candidate coatings are identified and design considerations f or recoil-enhanced release particles are reviewed.
