Testing of Gas Reactor Fuel and Materials in the Advanced Test Reactor
The recent growth in interest for high temperature gas reactors has resulted in an increased need for materials and fuel testing for this type of reactor. The Advanced Test Reactor (ATR), located at the US Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory, has long been involved in testing gas reactor fuel and materials, and has facilities and capabilities to provide the right environment for gas reactor irradiation experiments. These capabilities include both passive sealed capsule experiments, and instrumented/actively controlled experiments. The instrumented/actively controlled experiments typically contain thermocouples and control the irradiation temperature, but on-line measurements and controls for pressure and gas environment have also been performed in past irradiations. The ATR has an existing automated gas temperature control system that can maintain temperature in an irradiation experiment within very tight bounds, and has developed an on-line fission product monitoring system that is especially well suited for testing gas reactor particle fuel. The ATR’s control system, which consists primarily of vertical cylinders used to rotate neutron poisons/reflectors toward or away from the reactor core, provides a constant vertical flux profile over the duration of each operating cycle. This constant chopped cosine shaped axial flux profile, with a relatively flat peak at the vertical centre of the core, is more desirable for experiments than a constantly moving axial flux peak resulting from a control system of axially positioned control components which are vertically withdrawn from the core.
- Research Organization:
- Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- DOE - NE
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-AC07-99ID-13727
- OSTI ID:
- 911793
- Report Number(s):
- INL/CON-06-01208; TRN: US0800138
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Pacific Basin Nuclear Conference,Sydney, Australia,10/20/2006,10/25/2006
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
21 - SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
CONTROL SYSTEMS
FISSION PRODUCTS
IRRADIATION
MONITORING
NEUTRONS
NUCLEAR FUELS
REACTOR CORES
TEMPERATURE CONTROL
TEST REACTORS
TESTING
THERMOCOUPLES
Advanced Test Reactor
high temperature gas reactor
irradiation experiments
particle fuel