Space Nuclear Thermal Propulsion Critical Assembly Boron Worth Experiments
- Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
The Space Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (SNTP) project was an attempt to create a more powerful and more efficient rocket engine utilizing nuclear technologies. As part of this project a zero-power critical assembly referred to as SNTPCX was designed and installed at Sandia National Laboratories. The SNTP-CX was a light water moderated particle bed reactor utilizing highly enriched uranium fuel in the form of UC particles. The SNTP-CX performed 142 runs covering numerous experiments from the year 1989 to 1992. The program was canceled in 1994 as the nation’s priorities shifted. Now these experiments are being evaluated for use as criticality safety benchmarks. Nineteen of the 142 reactor runs were dedicated to a series of experiments to calculate the worth of the boron used in the light water moderator. This series of experiments has been selected for further evaluation as a critical benchmark for the International Criticality Safety Benchmark Evaluation Project (ICSBEP).
- Research Organization:
- Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), Albuquerque, NM, and Livermore, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Nuclear Criticality Safety Program (NCSP)
- DOE Contract Number:
- NA0003525
- OSTI ID:
- 1878223
- Report Number(s):
- SAND2021-8245C
- Journal Information:
- Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, Journal Name: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 125; ISSN 0003-018X
- Publisher:
- American Nuclear Society
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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