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Proposal for a Nuclear Analysis of Clustered Reactor Interations

REPORT

1963 Nov 04

1998 May 04

Declassified

29 p.

None

GE-NMP-63-57

General Electric Co., Cincinnati, OH (United States)

2018 Sep 27

2023 Oct 18

The ability to cluster nuclear rocket engines would provide increased flexibility to the mission analyst and vehicle designer in the selection of thrust levels for a stage and also reduce the number of engines that would have to be developed. Reducing the required num ber of different size engines would greatly reduce the cost of developing and fabricating engines, conducting qualification testing, and the required facilities. Vehicle and mission studies made to date indicate that the potential flexibility and cost reductions are of great interest. In these studies, however, the interaction of clusters of engines has only been approximated and a quantitative assessment of the actual effect of clustering on system performance has not been possible. However, in order to realistically determine the de sirability of clustering, an accurate evaluation of the problems associated with the use of clustered nuclear rocket engines should be undertaken. Many questions must be answered, such as the weight and cost trade-off of multiple small engines versus a large single engine for a given reliability level and the added or modified shielding requirements. However, a valid assessment ofthese effects is dependent upon an accurate determination of the nuclear interaction between adjacent engines in the cluster. Several analyses of the nuclear interaction of clustered reactors have been per formed by GE-NMPO personnel with various degrees of sophistication in recent nuclear rocket investigations and earlier design studies. None of these analyses provided com pletely satisfactory solutions. However, they revealed the complexity and difficulty of the problem and illustrated the need for methods of providing accurate interaction information. A well-controlled experiment would provide the best determination of the interaction be tween adjacent nuclear engines. In a ground-based experiment, however, the effects of ground and air scattering as well as irrelevant structural effects, would produce results of questionable reliability. It would be more desirable to perform the experiment under fully controlled conditions. This approach can be closely approximated through the use of computer programmed Monte Carlo techniques.