Element Factory, LLC (Cheyenne, WY) will work with Idaho National Laboratory to ensure that graphite components will meet technical and regulatory requirements for use in nuclear reactors when they are produced through their novel process that uses different carbon sources.
Kanata America, Inc. (Cheyenne, WY) will collaborate with Sandia National Laboratories to improve the efficiency of their thermal energy storage and power conversion systems for future use in microreactors.
Westinghouse will partner with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to perform an irradiation test and associated Post-Irradiation Examination (PIE) on a specific CMC to ensure it is a viable option for the eVinci microreactor prior to performing a larger irradiation campaign. The work will utilize the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at ORNL.
The Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN) announced today that seven companies will be provided a GAIN Nuclear Energy (NE) Voucher to accelerate the innovation and application of advanced nuclear technologies. NE vouchers provide advanced nuclear technology innovators with access to the extensive nuclear research capabilities and expertise available across the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratory complex. This is the first award for FY 2024.
SHINE will work with Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) and Sandia National Laboratory (SNL) to help integrate sensors into the MC&A requirements for SHINE’s flowsheets and perform modeling to define sensor placement and requirements.
GNF will partner with Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) to perform to perform electroreduction tests on various uranium oxide samples to understand product quality and impurities such that GNF can determine if it’s feasible to adopt into metallic fuel manufacturing.
This project will evaluate potential climate impacts in the northwestern United States from climate models and use those results to model plant performance using various cooling options. The results will be used to determine the range of plant performance and cost distributions to help understand the factors that need to influence the selection of a ultimate heat sink for a nuclear reactor in the region.
The Remote Systems Group (RSG) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) will perform a three-stage design review focused on operations, the detailed design, and a failure modes and effects analysis. Their experience base is uniquely valuable to MIGHTR and In-Vesel Fuel Handling Machine (IVFHM) development. This project will mitigate the risk of operational complexity by reviewing a critical system.
For this project, ARC will work with Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) to enhance the SAS modeling capabilities for passive heat removal systems, including the generic RVACS model and the DRACS heat exchanger models. These enhancements will enable ARC to recover safety margins and have a better representation of the system’s response during long-term cooling events.
Aalo will partner with Idaho National Laboratory (INL) to perform independent analyses on fuel performance using the BISON code as well as thermal-hydraulics using RELAP5-3D. This work will support the independent code-to-code verification to support Aalo’s future licensing efforts.