Download or read book Temperature Controlled Material Irradiation in the Advanced Test Reactor written by and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 8 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) is located at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory (INEL) near Idaho Falls, Idaho, USA and is owned and regulated by the U.S. Department of Energy (US DOE). The ATR is operated for the US DOE by Lockheed Martin Idaho Technologies. In recent years, prime irradiation space in the ATR has been made available for use by customers having irradiation service needs in addition to the reactor's principal user, the U.S. Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program. To enhance the reactor's capabilities, the US DOE has initiated the development of an Irradiation Test Vehicle (ITV) capable of providing neutron spectral tailoring and temperature control for up to 28 experiments. The ATR-ITV will have the flexibility to simultaneously support a variety of experiments requiring fast, thermal or mixed spectrum neutron environments. Temperature control is accomplished by varying the thermal conductivity across a gas gap established between the experiment specimen capsule wall and the experiment 'in-pile tube (IPT)' inside diameter. Thermal conductivity is adjusted by alternating the control gas mixture ratio of two gases with different thermal conductivities.

Download or read book The Advanced Test Reactor Irradiation Facilities and Capabilities written by Raymond V. Furstenau and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 16 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Advanced test Reactor (ATR) is the third generation of test reactors built at the Test Reactor Area (TRA), located in the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL), to study the effects of intense neutron and gamma radiation on reactor materials and fuels. ART has a maximum power of 250MW and can provide maximum thermal neutron fluxes of 1E15 neutrons per square centimeter per second. this allows considerable acceleration of accumulated neutron fluence to materials and fuels over what would be seen in a typical power reactor. Since power operation of the ATR began in 1969, numerous testing methods have been developed to take advantage of the capabilities of the ATR. The wide range of experimental facilities in the ATR and the unique ability to vary the neutron flux in different areas of the core allow numerous experiment conditions to co-exist during the same reactor operating cycle. Simple experiments may involve a non-instrumented sealed capsule containing test specimens with no real-time monitoring and control capabilities. More sophisticated testing facilities include inert gas temperature control systems and pressurized water loops that have continuous chemistry, pressure, temperature, and flow control as well as numerous test specimen monitoring capabilities. There are also apparatus that allow for the simulation of reactor transients on test specimens. The Irradiation Test Vehicle, installed in 1999, is the newest testing apparatus in the ATR that accommodates up to fifteen separate tests, each with its own temperature control and monitoring capabilities as well as neutron spectral tailoring capability. The U.S. Department of Energy intends to maintain and expand the capabilities of the ATR to ensure it remains a viable facility for the Department's materials and fuels testing programs for the foreseeable future." -- Page[1].

Download or read book Capabilities and Facilities Available at the Advanced Test Reactor to Support Development of the Next Generation Reactors written by S. Blaine Grover and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ATR is one of the world's premiere test reactors for performing long term, high flux, and/or large volume irradiation test programs. It is a very versatile facility with a wide variety of experimental test capabilities for providing the environment needed in an irradiation experiment. These different capabilities include passive sealed capsule experiments, instrumented and/or temperature-controlled experiments, and pressurized water loop experiment facilities. The Irradiation Test Vehicle (ITV) installed in 1999 enhanced these capabilities by providing a built in experiment monitoring and control system for instrumented and/or temperature controlled experiments. This built in control system significantly reduces the cost for an actively monitored/temperature controlled experiments by providing the thermocouple connections, temperature control system, and temperature control gas supply and exhaust systems already in place at the irradiation position. Although the ITV in-core hardware was removed from the ATR during the last core replacement completed in early 2005, it (or a similar facility) could be re-installed for an irradiation program when the need arises. The proposed Gas Test Loop currently being designed for installation in the ATR will provide additional capability for testing of not only gas reactor materials and fuels but will also include enhanced fast flux rates for testing of materials and fuels for other next generation reactors including preliminary testing for fast reactor fuels and materials. This paper discusses the different irradiation capabilities available and the cost benefit issues related to each capability.

Download or read book The Advanced Test Reactor Irradiation Capabilities Available as a National Scientific User Facility written by and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) is one of the world's premiere test reactors for performing long term, high flux, and/or large volume irradiation test programs. The ATR is a very versatile facility with a wide variety of experimental test capabilities for providing the environment needed in an irradiation experiment. These capabilities include simple capsule experiments, instrumented and/or temperature-controlled experiments, and pressurized water loop experiment facilities. Monitoring systems have also been utilized to monitor different parameters such as fission gases for fuel experiments, to measure specimen performance during irradiation. ATR's control system provides a stable axial flux profile throughout each reactor operating cycle, and allows the thermal and fast neutron fluxes to be controlled separately in different sections of the core. The ATR irradiation positions vary in diameter from 16 mm to 127 mm over an active core height of 1.2 m. This paper discusses the different irradiation capabilities with examples of different experiments and the cost/benefit issues related to each capability. The recent designation of ATR as a national scientific user facility will make the ATR much more accessible at very low to no cost for research by universities and possibly commercial entities.

Download or read book Irradiation Facilities at the Advanced Test Reactor written by S. Blaine Grover and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) is the third generation and largest test reactor built in the Reactor Technology Complex (RTC - formerly known as the Test Reactor Area), located at the Idaho NationalLaboratory (INL), to study the effects of intense neutron and gamma radiation on reactor materials and fuels. The RTC was established in the early 1950s with the development of the Materials Testing Reactor (MTR), which operated until 1970. The second major reactor was the Engineering Test Reactor (ETR), whichoperated from 1957 to 1981, and finally the ATR, which began operation in 1967 and will continue operation well into the future. These reactors have produced a significant portion of the world's data on materials response to reactor environments. The wide range of experiment facilities in the ATR and the unique ability to vary the neutron flux in different areas of the core allow numerous experiment conditions to co-exist during the same reactor operating cycle. Simple experiments may involve a non-instrumented capsule containingtest specimens with no real-time monitoring or control capabilities1. More sophisticated testing facilities include inert gas temperature control systems and pressurized water loops that have continuous chemistry, pressure, temperature, and flow control as well as numerous test specimen monitoring capabilities. There are also apparatus that allow for the simulation of reactor transients on test specimens.

Download or read book The Advanced Test Reactor Irradiation Facilities and Capabilities written by and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) is one of the world's premiere test reactors for performing long term, high flux, and/or large volume irradiation test programs. The ATR is a very versatile facility with a wide variety of experimental test capabilities for providing the environment needed in an irradiation experiment. These different capabilities include passive sealed capsule experiments, instrumented and/or temperature-controlled experiments, and pressurized water loop experiment facilities. The ATR has enhanced capabilities in experiment monitoring and control systems for instrumented and/or temperature controlled experiments. The control systems utilize feedback from thermocouples in the experiment to provide a custom blended flowing inert gas mixture to control the temperature in the experiments. Monitoring systems have also been utilized on the exhaust gas lines from the experiment to monitor different parameters, such as fission gases for fuel experiments, during irradiation. ATR's unique control system provides axial flux profiles in the experiments, unperturbed by axially positioned control components, throughout each reactor operating cycle and over the duration of test programs requiring many years of irradiation. The ATR irradiation positions vary in diameter from 1.6 cm (0.625 inches) to 12.7 cm (5.0 inches) over an active core length of 122 cm (48.0 inches). Thermal and fast neutron fluxes can be adjusted radially across the core depending on the needs of individual test programs. This paper will discuss the different irradiation capabilities available and the cost/benefit issues related to each capability. Examples of different experiments will also be discussed to demonstrate the use of the capabilities and facilities at ATR for performing irradiation experiments.

Download or read book The Advanced Test Reactor ATR written by and published by . This book was released on 1960 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Testing of Gas Reactor Materials and Fuel in the Advanced Test Reactor written by Blaine S. Grover and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 22 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) has long been involved in testing gas reactor materials, and has developed facilities well suited for providing the right conditions and environment for gas reactor tests. This paper discusses the different types of irradiation hardware that have been utilized in past ATR irradiation tests of gas reactor materials. The new Gas Test Loop facility currently being developed for the ATR is discussed and the different approaches being considered in the design of the facility. The different options for an irradiation experiment such as active versus passive temperature control, neutron spectrum tailoring, and different types of lead experiment sweep gas monitors are also discussed. The paper is then concluded with examples of different past and present gas reactor material and fuel irradiations" -- Page [1].

Download or read book Testing of Gas Reactor Materials and Fuel in the Advanced Test Reactor written by and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) has long been involved in testing gas reactor materials, and has developed facilities well suited for providing the right conditions and environment for gas reactor tests. This paper discusses the different types of irradiation hardware that have been utilized in past ATR irradiation tests of gas reactor materials. The new Gas Test Loop facility currently being developed for the ATR is discussed and the different approaches being considered in the design of the facility. The different options for an irradiation experiment such as active versus passive temperature control, neutron spectrum tailoring, and different types of lead experiment sweep gas monitors are also discussed. The paper is then concluded with examples of different past and present gas reactor material and fuel irradiations.

Download or read book Thermal Analysis of Irradiation Experiments in the ATR written by and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reactor material testing in the INL's Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) involves modeling and simulation of each experiment to accurately determine the irradiation temperature. This paper describes thermal analysis of capsule experiments using gas gap temperature control and provides data on recent material tests that validate the modeling results. Static capsule experiments and lead-out capsule experiments are discussed. The source of temperature variation in capsule experiments and ways to mitigate these variations are also explained. Two examples of instrumented lead-out capsule experiments, TMIST-1 and UCSB-2, are presented. A comparison of measured and calculated temperatures is used to validate the thermal models and to ascertain the accuracy of the calculated temperature.

Download or read book Testing of Gas Reactor Fuel and Materials in the Advanced Test Reactor written by S. Blaine Grover and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Advanced Test Reactor A National Scientific User Facility written by and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ATR is a pressurized, light-water moderated and cooled, beryllium-reflected nuclear research reactor with a maximum operating power of 250 MWth. The unique serpentine configuration of the fuel elements creates five main reactor power lobes (regions) and nine flux traps. In addition to these nine flux traps there are 68 additional irradiation positions in the reactor core reflector tank. There are also 34 low-flux irradiation positions in the irradiation tanks outside the core reflector tank. The ATR is designed to provide a test environment for the evaluation of the effects of intense radiation (neutron and gamma). Due to the unique serpentine core design each of the five lobes can be operated at different powers and controlled independently. Options exist for the individual test trains and assemblies to be either cooled by the ATR coolant (i.e., exposed to ATR coolant flow rates, pressures, temperatures, and neutron flux) or to be installed in their own independent test loops where such parameters as temperature, pressure, flow rate, neutron flux, and energy can be controlled per experimenter specifications. The full-power maximum thermal neutron flux is ~1.0 x1015 n/cm2-sec with a maximum fast flux of ~5.0 x1014 n/cm2-sec. The Advanced Test Reactor, now a National Scientific User Facility, is a versatile tool in which a variety of nuclear reactor, nuclear physics, reactor fuel, and structural material irradiation experiments can be conducted. The cumulative effects of years of irradiation in a normal power reactor can be duplicated in a few weeks or months in the ATR due to its unique design, power density, and operating flexibility.

Download or read book TESTING OF GAS REACTOR MATERIALS AND FUEL IN THE ADVANCED TEST REACTOR written by S. B. Grover and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 5 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) has long been involved in testing gas reactor materials, and has developed facilities well suited for providing the right conditions and environment for gas reactor tests. This paper discusses the different types of irradiation hardware that have been utilized in past ATR irradiation tests of gas reactor materials. The new Gas Test Loop facility currently being developed for the ATR is discussed and the different approaches being considered in the design of the facility. The different options for an irradiation experiment such as active versus passive temperature control, neutron spectrum tailoring, and different types of lead experiment sweep gas monitors are also discussed. The paper is then concluded with examples of different past and present gas reactor material and fuel irradiations.

Download or read book Advanced Test Reactor Testing Experience written by Frances M. Marshall and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Advanced Test Reactor (ATR), at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), is one of the world's premier test reactors for providing the capability for studying the effects of intense neutron and gamma radiation on reactor materials and fuels. The physical configuration of the ATR, a 4-leaf clover shape, allows the reactor to be operated at different power levels in the corner "lobes" to allow for different testing conditions for multiple simultaneous experiments. The combination of high flux (maximum thermal neutron fluxes of 1E15 neutrons per square centimeter per second and maximum fast [E>1.0 MeV] neutron fluxes of 5E14 neutrons per square centimeter per second) and large test volumes (up to 48" long and 5.0" diameter) provide unique testing opportunities. The current experiments in the ATR are for a variety of test sponsors -- US government, foreign governments, private researchers, and commercial companies needing neutron irradiation services. There are three basic types of test configurations in the ATR. The simplest configuration is the sealed static capsule, wherein the target material is placed in a capsule, or plate form, and the capsule is in direct contact with the primary coolant. The next level of complexity of an experiment is an instrumented lead experiment, which allows for active monitoring and control of experiment conditions during the irradiation. The highest level of complexity of experiment is the pressurized water loop experiment, in which the test sample can be subjected to the exact environment of a pressurized water reactor. For future research, some ATR modifications and enhancements are currently planned. This paper provides more details on some of the ATR capabilities, key design features, experiments, and future plans.

Download or read book Preliminary Results of the Combined Third and Fourth Very High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor Irradiation in the Advanced Test Reactor written by and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United States Department of Energy's Very High Temperature Reactor Technology Development Office (VHTR-TDO) Advanced Gas Reactor (AGR) Fuel Development and Qualification Program is irradiating up to seven low enriched uranium (LEU) tri-isotopic (TRISO) particle fuel (in compact form) experiments in the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) located at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL). These irradiations and fuel development are being accomplished to support development of the next generation high temperature gas-cooled reactors in the United States. The experiments will be irradiated over the next several years to demonstrate and qualify new TRISO coated particle fuel for use in high temperature gas reactors. The goals of the experiments are to provide irradiation performance data to support fuel process development, to qualify fuel for normal operating conditions, to support development and validation of fuel performance and fission product transport models and codes, and to provide irradiated fuel and materials for post irradiation examination (PIE) and safety testing. The experiments, which will each consist of several independent capsules, will be irradiated in an inert sweep gas atmosphere with individual on-line temperature monitoring and control of each capsule. The sweep gas will also have on-line fission product monitoring on its effluent to track performance of the fuel in each individual capsule during irradiation. The first experiment (designated AGR-1) started irradiation in December 2006 and was completed in November 2009. The second experiment (AGR-2) started irradiation in June 2010 and completed in October 2013. The third and fourth experiments were combined into a single experiment designated (AGR-3/4), which started its irradiation in December 2011 and completed in April 2014. Since the purpose of this combined experiment was to provide data on fission product migration and retention in a high temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR), the design of this experiment was significantly different from the first two experiments, though the control and monitoring systems are extremely similar. The design of the experiment will be discussed followed by its progress and status to date.

Download or read book Irradiation Effects in Structural Alloys for Thermal and Fast Reactors written by and published by ASTM International. This book was released on with total page 437 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Advanced Gas Reactor AGR 5 6 7 Fuel Irradiation Experiments in the Advanced Test Reactor written by and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United States Department of Energy's Very High Temperature Reactor (VHTR) Advanced Gas Reactor (AGR) Fuel Development and Qualification Program will be irradiating up to seven separate low enriched uranium (LEU) tri-isotopic (TRISO) particle fuel (in compact form) experiments in the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) located at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL). These irradiations and fuel development are being accomplished to support development of the next generation reactors in the United States. The goals of the irradiation experiments are to provide irradiation performance data to support fuel process development, to qualify fuel for normal operating conditions, to support development and validation of fuel performance and fission product transport models and codes, and to provide irradiated fuel and materials for post irradiation examination (PIE) and safety testing. The experiments, which each consist of at least five separate capsules, are being irradiated in an inert sweep gas atmosphere with individual on-line temperature monitoring and control of each capsule. The sweep gases also have on-line fission product monitoring the effluent from each capsule to track performance of the fuel during irradiation. The first two experiments (designated AGR-1 and AGR-2), have been completed. The third and fourth experiments have been combined into a single experiment designated AGR-3/4, which started its irradiation in December 2011 and is currently scheduled to be completed in April 2014. The design of the fuel qualification experiment, designated AGR-5/6/7, is well underway and incorporates lessons learned from the three previous experiments. Various design issues will be discussed with particular details related to selection of thermometry.