Design and out-of-pile testing of a novel irradiation experiment vehicle to support qualification of nuclear thermal propulsion components

Richard H. Howard; Arthur E. Ruggles

doi:10.1016/j.nucengdes.2020.110516

Design and out-of-pile testing of a novel irradiation experiment vehicle to support qualification of nuclear thermal propulsion components

Richard H. Howard, Arthur E. Ruggles

Irradiation Engineering

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

8 Scopus citations

Abstract

Fission power systems have demonstrated higher thermal energy density per unit mass than chemical systems. High mass specific energy density offers advantages in space thermal propulsion applications. In the 1960s, nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) development included the ROVER/NERVA program, in which full-scale prototype reactors were tested on the ground using hydrogen as the reactor coolant and propellant. NTP systems are being revisited, with expectations of improved performance resulting from improved fuel materials, allowing propellant temperatures near 2,800 K and over 20 thermal propulsion cycles. An apparatus has been developed to test NTP fuel materials in a research reactor at temperature and in a radiation environment typical of the NTP application. This paper presents the design constraints, preliminary scoping thermal analysis, and basic thermal qualification testing for the out-of-pile experiment set apparatus, or OUTSET.

Original language	English
Article number	110516
Journal	Nuclear Engineering and Design
Volume	361
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nucengdes.2020.110516
State	Published - May 2020

Funding

Notice: This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the US Department of Energy (DOE). The US government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the US government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for US government purposes. DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan ( http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan ). This work was funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The authors wish to acknowledge the contributions of Dr. T. J. Harrison (ORNL/UTK), Dr. J. I. Frenkel (UTK), Dr. T. Moeller (UTSI), Dr. K. Benensky (NASA), Mr. M. Barnes (NASA), and Mr. K. Smith (ORNL); their input was invaluable to this work.

Funders	Funder number
U.S. Department of Energy
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
University of Tennessee Space Institute

Keywords

Irradiation experiment design
Nuclear thermal propulsion
Reactor component qualification

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10.1016/j.nucengdes.2020.110516

Cite this

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abstract = "Fission power systems have demonstrated higher thermal energy density per unit mass than chemical systems. High mass specific energy density offers advantages in space thermal propulsion applications. In the 1960s, nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) development included the ROVER/NERVA program, in which full-scale prototype reactors were tested on the ground using hydrogen as the reactor coolant and propellant. NTP systems are being revisited, with expectations of improved performance resulting from improved fuel materials, allowing propellant temperatures near 2,800 K and over 20 thermal propulsion cycles. An apparatus has been developed to test NTP fuel materials in a research reactor at temperature and in a radiation environment typical of the NTP application. This paper presents the design constraints, preliminary scoping thermal analysis, and basic thermal qualification testing for the out-of-pile experiment set apparatus, or OUTSET.",

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AB - Fission power systems have demonstrated higher thermal energy density per unit mass than chemical systems. High mass specific energy density offers advantages in space thermal propulsion applications. In the 1960s, nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) development included the ROVER/NERVA program, in which full-scale prototype reactors were tested on the ground using hydrogen as the reactor coolant and propellant. NTP systems are being revisited, with expectations of improved performance resulting from improved fuel materials, allowing propellant temperatures near 2,800 K and over 20 thermal propulsion cycles. An apparatus has been developed to test NTP fuel materials in a research reactor at temperature and in a radiation environment typical of the NTP application. This paper presents the design constraints, preliminary scoping thermal analysis, and basic thermal qualification testing for the out-of-pile experiment set apparatus, or OUTSET.

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Design and out-of-pile testing of a novel irradiation experiment vehicle to support qualification of nuclear thermal propulsion components

Abstract

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Keywords

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