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Title: Challenges in the Development of High Temperature Reactors

Abstract

Advanced reactor designs offer potentially significant improvements over currently operating light water reactors including improved fuel utilization, increased efficiency, higher temperature operation (enabling a new suite of non-electric industrial process heat applications), and increased safety. As with most technologies, these potential performance improvements come with a variety of challenges to bringing advanced designs to the marketplace. There are technical challenges in material selection and thermal hydraulic and power conversion design that arise particularly for higher temperature, long life operation (possibly >60 years). The process of licensing a new reactor design is also daunting, requiring significant data collection for model verification and validation to provide confidence in safety margins associated with operating a new reactor design under normal and off-normal conditions. This paper focuses on the key technical challenges associated with two proposed advanced reactor concepts: the helium gas cooled Very High Temperature Reactor (VHTR) and the molten salt cooled Advanced High Temperature Reactor (AHTR).

Authors:
; ;
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
DOE - NE
OSTI Identifier:
1097178
Report Number(s):
INL/JOU-12-27405
Journal ID: ISSN 0196-8904
DOE Contract Number:  
DE-AC07-05ID14517
Resource Type:
Journal Article
Journal Name:
Energy Conversion and Management
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 74; Journal ID: ISSN 0196-8904
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
42 ENGINEERING; AHTR; molten salt; VHTR

Citation Formats

Sabharwall, Piyush, Bragg-Sitton, Shannon M., and Stoots, Carl. Challenges in the Development of High Temperature Reactors. United States: N. p., 2013. Web. doi:10.1016/j.enconman.2013.02.021.
Sabharwall, Piyush, Bragg-Sitton, Shannon M., & Stoots, Carl. Challenges in the Development of High Temperature Reactors. United States. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2013.02.021
Sabharwall, Piyush, Bragg-Sitton, Shannon M., and Stoots, Carl. 2013. "Challenges in the Development of High Temperature Reactors". United States. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2013.02.021.
@article{osti_1097178,
title = {Challenges in the Development of High Temperature Reactors},
author = {Sabharwall, Piyush and Bragg-Sitton, Shannon M. and Stoots, Carl},
abstractNote = {Advanced reactor designs offer potentially significant improvements over currently operating light water reactors including improved fuel utilization, increased efficiency, higher temperature operation (enabling a new suite of non-electric industrial process heat applications), and increased safety. As with most technologies, these potential performance improvements come with a variety of challenges to bringing advanced designs to the marketplace. There are technical challenges in material selection and thermal hydraulic and power conversion design that arise particularly for higher temperature, long life operation (possibly >60 years). The process of licensing a new reactor design is also daunting, requiring significant data collection for model verification and validation to provide confidence in safety margins associated with operating a new reactor design under normal and off-normal conditions. This paper focuses on the key technical challenges associated with two proposed advanced reactor concepts: the helium gas cooled Very High Temperature Reactor (VHTR) and the molten salt cooled Advanced High Temperature Reactor (AHTR).},
doi = {10.1016/j.enconman.2013.02.021},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1097178}, journal = {Energy Conversion and Management},
issn = {0196-8904},
number = ,
volume = 74,
place = {United States},
year = {Tue Oct 01 00:00:00 EDT 2013},
month = {Tue Oct 01 00:00:00 EDT 2013}
}