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HIGH TEMPERATURE GAS COOLED REACTOR

• By
Mula Bharadwaj 15BEM0005
Abhishek Agarwal 15BEM0016
Naman Gupta 15BEM0020
Naman Soni 15BEM0054
SALIENT FEATURES
1. No power and no water or other cooling fluid is required. - Heat removal from the reactor occurs naturally
and directly to the earth if normal heat transport systems are not available.

2. Reactor materials including the reactor fuel will not chemically react or burn to produce heat or explosive
gases. - Helium is inert and the fuel and materials of construction of the reactor core and the nuclear heat
supply system are chosen to preclude such reactions.

3. Intrusion of water or air into the reactor systems does not result in substantive degradation of the
capability to contain radioactive materials and maintain a shutdown condition. - The presence of water will
enhance the heat removal path.

4. Multiple assured barriers to the release of radioactive material are provided. - These barriers include
multiple layers of ceramic coatings on the nuclear fuel, the carbon encasement and the graphite core
structure.

5. Spent or used fuel is stored in casks or tanks in underground dry vaults that can be cooled by natural
circulation of air and shielded by steel plugs and concrete structure. - No water is required for either cooling
or radiation shielding and no active cooling system is required.
COMPARISON WITH OTHER NUCLEAR PLANTS

1. The placement of HTGRs can be as stand alone units as well as coupled with LWRs.
2. LWRs are extensively used in nuclear electricity generation. Meanwhile, the generation of minor
actinides seems to be an issue in the LWR spent fuel.
3. LWR spent fuel can be burnt in HTGRs as proposed in the “Deep Burn” concept.
4. Easier Waste management as long lived minor actinides will be transmuted into short lived isotopes.
5. Use of HTGRs is in the disposition of weapon grade plutonium as fuel.
6. HTGRs are possible candidate systems to be deployed within the concepts of Small and Medium Sized
Reactors (SMRs).
ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES OF HTGR
ADVANTAGES DISADVANTAGES
• Efficiency of HTGR is relatively higher • High temperature operation of
than any other nuclear reactors. HTGR causes helium impurities
• Its is comparatively small in size. which in turn cause neutron
• It can be used for both power poisoning.
generation and process heating.
• To overcome this problem
Ex 1 - Starcore Nuclear[18] in Canada helium monitoring and
is uses (20+10)MWe for electricity
and process heating respectively .
purification systems are
required.
Ex 2 - Hydrogen production, oil
extraction from oil shales, and coal • The He gas causes exfiltration
gasification are possible applications. which damages the turbo
machinery.
FUTURE OF HTGR
• The Very High Temperature Reactor (VHTR) or the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) concept has been
introduced for the future nuclear power plant deployment.

• VHTR concepts would operate at increased temperatures in order to produce outlet temperatures of
~950°C.

• VHTRs and NGNP will be used for hydrogen production, process heat applications, and Brayton cycle
electricity production, while increasing fuel discharge burnup for better uranium utilization.

• replace the conventional UO2 fuel kernel with a stoichiometric two-phase mixture of UO2 and UC2, namely
UCO.

• The UCO fuel kernel provides resistance against fuel kernel migration and internal pressure build-up caused
by excessive CO formation.
NUCLEAR FUEL

• The fuel used in HTGRs is coated fuel particles, such as TRISO fuel particles.
• Uranium oxycarbide combines uranium carbide with the uranium dioxide to reduce the oxygen
stoichiometry.
• The TRISO particles are either dispersed in a pebble for the pebble bed design or molded into
compacts/rods that are then inserted into the hexagonal graphite blocks.
• Tristructural-isotropic (TRISO) fuel is a type of micro fuel particle. It consists of a fuel kernel composed
of Uox in the center, coated with four layers of three isotropic materials.
MAJOR LOCATIONS OF HTGR

1. China’s State Nuclear Power Technology Corp. (SNPTC)


• The reactor uses helium as a coolant instead of water.
• After the helium is heated to 750C (1,382F), it is sent to a steam generator where it heats water until it
becomes high-temperature steam.
• That steam then flows into a steam turbine to generate electricity.
• The process uses a graphite-moderated nuclear reactor and a once-through uranium fuel cycle.
• Its installation Capacity is 250-MW.
2. THTR-300 in Hammuentrop, Germany
• It served as a prototype high-temperature reactor (HTR) to use the TRISO pebble fuel.
• It was a helium-cooled high-temperature reactor with a pebble bed core consisting of approximately 670,000
spherical fuel compacts each 6 centimetres in diameter with particles of uranium-235 and thorium-232 fuel
embedded in a graphite matrix.
• The thermal output of the core was 750 megawatts.
• Heat was transferred to the helium coolant, which then transport its heat to water, which then was used to
generate electricity via a Rankine cycle.
• The electric conversion system produced 308 megawatts of electricity.
3. Fort Saint Vrain Generating Station, Colorado in USA
• The primary coolant was helium which transferred heat to a water based secondary coolant system to
drive steam generators.
• The reactor fuel was a combination of fissile uranium and fertile thorium microspheres dispersed within a
prismatic graphite matrix.
• It currently has a capacity of just under 1000MW.
• It was substantially more efficient than modern light water reactors, reaching a thermal efficiency of 39-40%,
excellent for a steam-cycle power plant.
• The reactor had an electrical power output of 330MW, generated from a thermal power 842 MW.
WORKING

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