Nuclear Design Characteristics of Ultrahigh Temperature Space Reactorswith Thermal Spectrum

摘要

Recent studies at the Innovative Nuclear Space Power and Propulsion Institute (INSPI) haverndemonstrated the feasibility of fabricating solid solutions of ternary carbide fuels such as (U,Zr,Nb)C,rn(U,Zr,Ta)C, (U,Zr,Hf)C and (U,Zr,W)C. The necessity for accurate nuclear design analysis of these ternaryrncarbides in highly compact nuclear space systems prompted the development of nuclear design methodol-ogyrnfor analyzing these systems. This study will present the improvement made in the high temperature nu-clearrncross-sections. The nuclear design methodology will address several issues in the homogenization ofrna nuclear system, such as energy spectrum comparison between heterogeneous system and homogeneousrnsystem. The study will present the system characterization calculations, such as energy spectrum compari-son, temperature coefficient analysis, and water-submersion accident analysis.