Fuel loading of PeBR for a long operation life on the lunar surface
- Inst. for Space and Nuclear Power Studies, Univ. of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM (United States)
The Pellet Bed Reactor (PeBR) power system could provide 99.3 kW e to a lunar outpost for 66 full power years and is designed for no single point failures. The core of this fast energy spectrum reactor consists of three sectors that are neutronically and thermally coupled, but hydraulically independent. Each sector has a separate Closed Brayton Cycle (CBC) loop for energy conversion and separate water heat-pipes radiator panels for heat rejection. He-Xe (40 g/mole) binary gas mixture serves as the reactor coolant and CBC working fluid. On the lunar surface, the emplaced PeBR below grade is loaded with spherical fuel pellets (1-cm in dia.). It is launched unfueled and the pellets are launched in separate subcritical canisters, one for each core sector. This paper numerically simulates the transient loading of a core sector with fuel pellets on the Moon. The simulation accounts for the dynamic interaction of the pellets during loading and calculates the axial and radial distributions of the volume porosity in the sector. The pellets pack randomly with a volume porosity of 0.39 - 0.41 throughout most of the sector, except near the walls the local porosity is higher. (authors)
- Research Organization:
- American Nuclear Society, 555 North Kensington Avenue, La Grange Park, IL 60526 (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 22106040
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
BINARY MIXTURES
BRAYTON CYCLE
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
CONTAINERS
ENERGY CONVERSION
ENERGY SPECTRA
FUEL PELLETS
GAS COOLED REACTORS
HEAT PIPES
HELIUM
MOON
NESDPS Office of Nuclear Energy Space and Defense Power Systems
PEBBLE BED REACTORS
POROSITY
RADIATORS
REACTOR FUELING
REACTOR OPERATION
SPACE POWER REACTORS
SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION
SPHERICAL CONFIGURATION
WORKING FLUIDS
XENON