Preliminary nuclear design studies have been completed on ten
configurations of nuclear reactors for low power (1-30 kWe) space
applications utilizing thermionic energy conversion. Additional design
studies have been conducted on the TRICE multimegawatt in-core
thermionic reactor configuration. In each of the cases, a reactor
configuration has been determined which has the potential for operating
7 years with sufficient reactivity margin. Additional safety
evaluations have been conducted on these configurations including the
determination of sufficient shutdown reactivity, and consideration of
water immersion, water flooding, sand burial, and reactor compaction
accident scenarios. It has been found, within the analysis conducted
using the MCNP Monte Carlo neutron transport code, that there are
configurations which are feasible and deserve further analysis. It has
also been found that solid core reactors which rely solely on conduction
for heat removal as well as pin type cores immersed in a liquid metal
bath have merit. The solid cores look attractive when flooding and
compaction accident scenarios are considered as there is little chance
for water to enter the core and cause significant neutron moderation. A
fuel volume fraction effect has also been found in the consideration of
the sand burial cases for the SP-100 derived configurations. / Graduation date: 1994
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/37043 |
| Date | 23 November 1993 |
| Creators | Gedeon, Stephen R. |
| Contributors | Klein, Andrew C. |
| Source Sets | Oregon State University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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