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MARVEL PDSA approval could serve as blueprint
MARVEL, the Microreactor Applications Research Validation and Evaluation project at Idaho National Laboratory, has had its preliminary documented safety analysis approved by the Department of Energy, marking a milestone in its development and serving as a potential outline for other microreactors in development.
Mark T. Robinson
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 4 | Number 3 | September 1958 | Pages 270-287
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE58-A25528
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A simple phenomenological theory is presented to describe the xenon poisoning of a molten fluoride fueled nuclear reactor which is sparged with a suitable inert gas. The extension of the theory to removal of other fission product species is indicated. The theory is illustrated by a parametric study. It is found that arbitrarily low levels of Xe135 can be achieved by adequate sparging of the fuel. Such sparging also frees these reactors from the trouble-some rise of the xenon poisoning during shutdowns. No reactivity transients of a serious nature are likely to result from changes in the rates of the xenon removal processes.