Reactor, breeder research

Item facility. Power reactors (Light Water Reactor (LWR), On-load Reactor (OLR)), Research Reactor (Material Testing Reactor (MTR), Fast Breeder Reactor (FBR), (TRIGA) and Critical Assemblies, Nuclear Material Storage (dry and wet). 

XXX-24] Molten Salt Breeder Reactor, Special Research Committee Report, the Atomic Energy Society of Japan, (1981/4) (in Japanese). 

The committee s unfavorable comments shocked PRDC officials, and the AEC was even more stunned since the report expressed grave reservations about the adequacy of its own fast-breeder research program. Fields wanted more information on the bases of the Safeguards Committee s position, as did Harold Price, director of the Division of Civilian Application, and Kenneth Davis, director of the Division of Reactor... 

The breeder reactor, which would produce and bum plutonium and gradually increase the inventory of fissionable material, requires reprocessing of nuclear fuel. As of 1995 only limited research and development was in progress on breeder reactors, mainly in France and Japan. 

The United States continued fast-breeder reactor research and development with the building of the fast flux test faciHty (FFTF) at Hanford and the SEFOR reactor in Arkansas (59). The next plaimed step was to build a prototype power reactor, the Clinch River fast-breeder plant (CRFBP), which was to be located near Oak Ridge, Teimessee. 

Several alternative technologies that were heavily supported failed to become commercially viable. The most obvious case was the fast breeder reactor. Such reactors are designed to produce more fissionable material from nonfissionable uranium than is consumed. The effort was justified by fears of uranium exhaustion made moot by massive discoveries in Australia and Canada. Prior to these discoveries extensive programs to develop breeder reactors were government-supported. In addition, several different conventional reactor technologies were aided. The main ongoing nuclear effort is research to develop a means to effect controlled fusion of atoms. 

Y. S. Tang. Ph.D has more than 35 years of experience in the field of thermal and fluid flow. His research interests have covered aspects of thermal hydraulics that are related to conventional and nonconventional power generation systems, with an emphasis on nuclear reactor design and analysis that focuses on liquld-meta -cooled reactors. Dr. Tang is co-author of Radioactive Waste Management published by Taylor 8 Francis, and Thermal Analysis of Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactors, He received a B5. from National Central University In China and an MS. in mechanical engineering from the University of Wisconsin. He earned his Ph.D. 

Since plutonium is the actinide generating most concern at the moment this review will be concerned primarily with this element. However, in the event of the fast breeder reactors being introduced the behaviour of americium and curium will be emphasised. As neptunium is of no major concern in comparison to plutonium there has been little research conducted on its behaviour in the biosphere. This review will not discuss the behaviour of berkelium, californium, einsteinium, fermium, mendelevium, nobelium and lawrencium which are of no concern in the nuclear power programme although some of these actinides may be used in nuclear powered pacemakers. Occasionally other actinides, and some lanthanides, are referred to but merely to illustrate a particular fact of the actinides with greater clarity. 

Utilization of plutonium in early research and commercial orders to fabricate thermal recycle and fast breeder fuels did not coincide in timing with Pu availability from different sources. The plutonium comes mainly from high-exposure light-water reactor fuel reprocessing extended storage of this Pu as a nitrate solution leads to 241 contents up to 3%. For hands-on operation with this material it is necessary to reduce the Am content to about 0.5%. It was also necessary to minimize the liquid waste streams from the plant. In designing a technical-scale process, it was... 

In the United States, experiments at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois indicate that a new generation of breeder reactors can be developed that will be inherently safer than the pressurized boiling-water reactors now in use. This research also shows that these reactors can be cost-competitive with coal-... 

The source of energy in a nuclear reactor is a fission reaction in which neutrons collide with nuelei of uranium-235 or plutonium-239 (the fuel), causing them to split apart. The products of a fission reaction include not only energy but also new elements (known as fission products) and free neutrons. A constant and reliable flow of neutrons is insured in the reactor by a moderator, which slows down the speed of neutrons, and by control rods, which limit the number of neutrons available in the reactor and, hence, the rate at which fission can occur. In a nuclear weapon, the fission chain reaction, once triggered, proceeds at an exponentially increasing rate, resulting in an explosion in a nuclear reactor, it proceeds at a steady, controlled rate. Most commercial nuclear power plants are incapable of undergoing an explosive nuclear chain reaction, even should their safety systems fail this is not true of all research reactors (e.g., some breeder reactors). 

Research on removal of noble gases by permeation method with dimethyl silicon membranes was carried out in Oak Ridge National Laboratory [160]. On the basis of experimental work, the calculations for different industrial cascades separating krypton and xenon from the space of molten salt and sodium cooled breeder reactor or from the off gas from a plant processing spent reactor fuel were performed. 

The projections are based on a recent forecast (Case B) by the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA) of nuclear power growth in the United States (2) and on fuel mass-flow data developed for light water reactors fueled with uranium (LWR-U) or mixed uranium and plutonium oxide (LWR-Pu), a high temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR), and two liquid-metal-cooled fast breeder reactors (LMFBRs). Nuclear characteristics of the fuels and wastes were calculated using the computer code ORIGEN (3). 

The fuel for water-cooled powder reactors is enriched to contain 2-4% U-235. Higher enrichments up to 93% U-235 are used in fuels for fast breeder reactors, HTGRs, and certain research and test reactors. 

El. Energy Research and Development Administration Final Environmental Statement, liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor Program, Report ERDA-153S, Dec. 1975. 

The longest experience with fast research reactors has been provided by the BN-3S0 reactor in the former USSR. It has been operated at a power level up to 1000 MW since 1972. Larger (100 — 12(X) MW ) prototype fast breeder power reactors have been designed in the former USSR, France, the UK, and Japan. The largest prototype FBR ever built and operated is the Creys-Malville plant (located in France), which could produce 1 200 MW. ... 

I he use of sodium and sodium-potassium alloys as reactor coolants has been the subject of a substantial amount of research and development. This has been carried out by various laboratories of the Atomic Energy Commission and subcontractors, in conjimction with nuclear plants such as the experimental breeder reactor and the prototype for the Seawolf power plant. A by-product of this work has been the development of new techniques and equipment for handling liquid metals. 

Kapoor.R.P. et al - Operating Experience of Fast Breeder Test Reactor and its utilization as an Experimental Facility, 5th Asian symposium on Research Reactors, May 29-31, 1996, Taejon, Korea. 

Fast Breeder Test Reactor (FBTR) at Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR), Kalpakkam is 40 MWt/I3.2 MWe sodium cooled, loop type plutonium rich mixed carbide fuelled reactor. It has two primary and secondary loops and a common steam water circuit with once through steam generator (SG), which supplies super heated steam to the condensing turbine. 

The Compact Sodium-cooled Nuclear Reactor Facility (KNK) was an experimental nuclear power plant of 20 MW electric power erected on the premises of the Karlsruhe Research Center. The plant was initially run as KNK I with a thermal core between 1971 and 1974 and then, between 1977 and 1991, with a fast core as the KNK II fast breeder plant. 

Reactors have become highly specialized instruments, according to their functions. We have research reactors, burners, and breeders, and to these have been added, more recently, batteries and thermonuclear machines. 

As for the demonstration fast breeder reactor (DFBR-1) of Japan, the three years design study since FY1994 on the plant optimization of the DFBR-1 has been completed by JAPC. Related research and development works are underway at several organizations under the discussion and coordination of the Japanese FBR R D Steering Committee. 

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