National Reactor Innovation Center | NRIC

NEWS: The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is making $13 million available for the Advanced Nuclear Energy Licensing Cost-Share Grant program.      The program will assist industry with U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission application costs to license new advanced reactor designs and facilities.       ➡️: https://lnkd.in/gjTRXGiJ  

On Dec 5th and 6th, NRIC, in collaboration with Nuclear Energy Institute and EPRI, organized the Nuclear Quality Assurance Challenges Workshop in Washington, D.C. Over 80 participants attended the workshop, including reactor developers, material suppliers, EPCs, code committees (ASME NQA-1, ASME BPVC, ACI, AISC, and ASCE), U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.   Nuclear Quality Assurance is a critical topic in the nuclear industry due to its associated cost premiums and supply chain bottlenecks. The goal of this workshop was to work with stakeholders and identify paths forward to address these challenges. Topics discussed include the need for education and training, modernizing (e.g., for software quality) and right-sizing quality requirements, using risk-informed methods to minimize the number of safety-related systems, leveraging non-nuclear quality assurance processes such as ISO-9001 (with additional controls) to open up the supply chain.   This workshop is just the beginning, and we plan to keep the conversations going. Please contact NRIC, NEI, or EPRI if you’d like to be involved.   NRIC POCs: Chandrakanth Bolisetti Bolisetti and Sanjay Mukhi, MBA Mukhi NEI POC: Mark Richter EPRI POC: Hasan Charkas, Ph.D., PE.   More details on the workshop including the presentation slides and videos can be found on the event website: https://lnkd.in/gN5AUeeN

NRIC's Virtual Test Bed (VTB) provides a computational environment for modeling and simulation to support advanced reactor development. The VTB hosts a wide variety of example problems based on different reactor designs. Today's highlight: BISON V&V for sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR) metallic fuel. ⚛️   The Integral Fast Reactor X447/A Experiment was designed to test the high-temperature performance of HT9 cladding and its compatibility with binary U-10Zr metallic fuel. In this experiment, the coolant was orificed to intentionally raise peak HT9 cladding temperature beyond 650°C. The experimental results showed significant fuel-cladding chemical interaction, leading to cladding deformation at peak temperature locations in fuel pins irradiated to ∼10 at.% burnup, and two cladding breach events. This outcome defined the operating condition envelope for the use of HT9 cladding with metallic fuel in an SFR. A computational model of a representative fuel pin irradiated in this experiment is now available on the VTB, which demonstrates BISON’s capabilities in simulating the performance of SFR metallic fuel pins.   This model was developed under the Office of Nuclear Energy | U.S. Department of Energy's NEAMS Program Fuel Performance Work Package led by Yacout Abdellatif at Argonne National Laboratory.   Learn more about the VTB model: https://lnkd.in/g9FwP44Q #nuclear #research #NuclearReactor #CleanEnergy #NuclearScience 

It's time for another DOME update! We're preparing for the arrival of the massive hatch, and despite the oncoming winter weather, we're continuing external infrastructure work including the trays for supporting electrical and HVAC components.

Advanced nuclear innovators are making significant progress toward demonstration in NRIC's Demonstration of Microreactor Experiments test bed. NRIC acting director Brad Tomer gave a detailed update today at #ANSWinter2024. If you're in Orlando, come see us at our booth tomorrow!

Today the Office of Nuclear Energy | U.S. Department of Energy awarded a total of $5 million to Radiant and Westinghouse Electric Company as they move on to the Detailed Engineering and Planning Process for demonstrating their #advancednuclear technologies in the NRIC DOME test bed at Idaho National Laboratory. Congratulations! https://lnkd.in/eMzzxZmv

Congratulations to Radiant on the completion of the front-end engineering and experiment design (FEEED) phase with NRIC! This is the first phase for developers desiring to test experimental reactors in NRIC's Demonstration of Microreactor Experiments (DOME) test bed Idaho National Laboratory. Radiant will continue to work with NRIC to finalize the design and planning for the Kaleidos experimental microreactor. https://lnkd.in/d6z66Cpy

It's time for another DOME construction update! Progress continues on the essential infrastructure that will make the test bed uniquely valuable for industry to test their advanced nuclear technologies. This week we've been preparing cable trays to run electrical wiring, and working on the HVAC system.

It's been a busy week at #PBNC2024! NRIC staff presented to attendees about the important work we're doing to support #AdvancedNuclear innovators, including preparing new test beds for technology demonstrations and addressing cost and timeline challenges.

The #PBNC2024 is in full swing, and NRIC is well represented! Yesterday COO Brad Tomer discussed the wide range of new technologies in development to help #AdvancedNuclear innovators meet their commercialization goals.