Abstract
An increase in the electrical energy from the TOPAZ-2 reactor can be achieved by increasing the thermionic conversion performance and also by extending the reactor lifetime. The thermionic conversion efficiency can be improved by using the Advanced Thermionic Initiative (ATI) technology. The ATI program was developed to study the use of advanced technology for an incore thermionic reactor capable of producing electrical power ranging from 10 to 50 kWe. This paper describes the effects of replacing the TOPAZ-TFE materials by the ATI materials on the criticality and thermionic/thermalhydraulics performance. Results from MCNP show an improvement on the effective criticality, increasing from 1.005 to 1.021 with an excess reactivity of $3.11 compared to an excess reactivity of $0.75 in the original TOPAZ-TFE design. This increment on the excess reactivity will require significant changes to accommodate launch abort water immersion accident scenarios. The thermionic/thermalhydraulics performance is determined by using the MCTFE code. There is a small variation of the electrical output and temperatures. Although the change in materials does not directly improve the thermionic conversion efficiency, this configuration allows the reactor to operate for a longer time than 18 months.
| Original language | English |
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| Pages | 1-6 |
| Number of pages | 6 |
| State | Published - 1994 |
| Event | Proceedings of the 1994 International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exhibition, of the Winter Annual Meeting - Chicago, IL, USA Duration: Nov 6 1994 → Nov 11 1994 |
Conference
| Conference | Proceedings of the 1994 International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exhibition, of the Winter Annual Meeting |
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| City | Chicago, IL, USA |
| Period | 11/6/94 → 11/11/94 |