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Browns Ferry’s reactors receive subsequent license renewals
The operating licenses for the three boiling water reactors at Browns Ferry nuclear power plant, in Athens, Ala., have each been renewed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for an additional 20 years. The reactors, operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority, are now licensed to operate until December 2053 for Unit 1, June 2054 for Unit 2, and July 2056 for Unit 3.
T.F. Yang, G.S. Luan,† L. Bromberg, D.R. Cohn, B.J. Braams
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 19 | Number 3 | May 1991 | Pages 857-863
Advanced Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/FST91-A29452
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A novel gaseous divertor concept is proposed consisting of gas chamber and pumping at high pressure or by reionizing the neutrals. The concept results in substantial reductions of the plasma temperature and heat flux at the target and the pumping requirement. Fluid model simulations of the scrape-off region of the Aries Reactor design by feeding the gas at the target at a flux of 1 × 1023m−2/s at 0.5 eV has shown that the electron and ion temperatures can be cooled to 20 eV. The heat flux to the target can be reduced from 80 MW/m2 to 6 MW/m2. The plasma temperature and heat flux at the divertor target are monotonically decreasing functions of the neutral incident flux. Interestingly the temperature and the heat flux also decrease with decreasing neutral gas initial flowing speed removing the need of gas jets. The backflow problem can be minimized by including a baffle plate to form a gaseous chamber. Monte-Carlo simulations using test particles have showed that the throat of the gaseous chamber can be practically plugged by the incident plasma to prevent backflow of neutrals into plasma core. The pumping can be facilitated by either operating the divertor chamber at high pressure on the order of 30 torr or reionizing the neutrals traveling to a weak toroidal field region.