| Abstract Scope |
The Department of Energy (DOE) has been supporting High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor (HTGR) R&D on TRISO fuel, graphite and high-temperature alloy qualifications since 2003, and the total federal investment to date in this reactor type is more than $1 Billion. The presentation will provide a historical overview of the milestones achieved on assessing UCO TRISO fuel performance and the irradiated behavior of various graphite grades. As a specific case study, the addition of Alloy 617 to the ASME code case as the first new high-temperature alloy added to the code in more than 20 years will also be discussed, and the importance of the current work on Alloy 709 for general high-temperature use in gas, fast and molten salt reactors will be highlighted.
In addition to the advanced materials programs at several US National Laboratories, the links between the current commercial HTGR projects and the various university research projects on fuels and materials funded via the DOE’s Nuclear Energy University Program (NEUP) will also be detailed. The presentation will conclude with a review of the remaining challenges, such as maturing a commercial supply chain, performing accelerated fuel qualification for new TRISO fuel forms, and the importance of new materials codification for micro- and space reactor applications. |