Engineering Development & Applications
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The Engineering Development & Applications Department concentrates its activities on Corrosion & Mechanics of Materials, Irradiation Performance, Engineering Development Labs, and Engineering Projects.
Capabilities
- Corrosion & Mechanics of Materials
- Irradiation Performance
- International Programs
- System/Component Design, Engineering and Drafting
- Decontamination and Decommissioning
- Systems/Component Testing
- Facility Safety Assessment
- Nuclear Energy Systems Design and Development
With our colleagues in Nuclear Systems Analysis and Engineering Analysis Departments, we develop designs and concepts for advanced nuclear energy systems, including advanced fast reactors and small modular fast reactors. These design concepts are complete integrated nuclear energy concepts used to understand the impact of introducing various innovative and advanced systems and components on the performance, safety, and the feasibility of the design. Some examples of the design concepts developed are the Small Modular Fast Reactor and the Advanced Burner Test Reactor.
Documents about Design Concepts
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Advanced Burner Test Reactor - Preconceptual Design Report
Argonne Report (ANL-ABR-1) [
7MB,
347 pages];- Small
Modular Fast Reactor - Design Description
Argonne Report (ANL-SMFR-1) [8MB,
194 pages]
This report describes the design of a Small Modular Fast Reactor that has been developed jointly by Argonne National Laboratory, Commissariat a l’Energie Atomique and Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute as an international collaborative effort.
A reactor size of 50MWe was selected for a specific niche application to small grid systems, where industrial infrastructure is not sufficient and the unit cost of electricity generation is very high with conventional technologies. Examples of this are remote areas in Alaska, small grid systems in developing countries, Pacific-basin islands, remote military locations, and similar unique situations.
Numerous innovative design features have been incorporated into the SMFR design including a metallic fueled core with high internal conversion ratio so that refueling for reactivity reasons is not required for 30 years, inherent passive safety characteristics achievable by sodium cooling, simplified reactor system for modular construction and transportability, and supercritical CO2 Brayton cycle power conversion system.
Programs
- Fuel Cycle Technologies (FCT)
- Generation IV (Gen IV) Nuclear Energy Program
- Decontamination and Decommissioning
- Nuclear Regulatory Research
Facilities
- Engineering Development Laboratory (EDL)
- Environmentally Assisted Cracking (EAC) Laboratory
- High Temperature Corrosion Test Facilities and High Pressure Test Facilities for Metal Dusting
- Irradiated Materials Laboratory (IML)
- Prototype Cathode Processor (PCP)
- Sodium Plugging Test Loop
- Steam Generator Tube Integrity Facilities
- Transmission Electron Microscope and Scanning Electron Microscopes
News Releases / In the Press
- Addressing Cleanup Around Fukushima Dai-ichi — Decontamination and decommissioning expert Lawrence E. Boing among those interviewed for a New York Times article about the clean-up of the soils in some of the areas surrounding the Fukushima plant (Mar. 31, 2011)
- Japan's disaster fuels debate on nuclear power plants here — Mitch Farmer among those interviewed for debate article at Chicago Daily Herald (Mar. 14, 2011)
- Coming
Back To Nuclear Energy
A resurgence of interest in new power plants is driving discovery of advanced materials
Chemical & Engineering News (Aug. 24, 2009) - Corrosion-resistant
alloys add luster to Argonne research
Chicago Tribune (Sep. 15, 2008) - Argonne scientists discover networks of metal nanoparticles are culprits in alloy corrosion New alloy composition could cut costs for petrochemical industry - Argonne News Releases (08/04/08)
- Nuclear
super-fuel gets too hot to handle
by Rob Edwards (Apr. 14, 2008) - full article on Rob Edwards website
Awards
- Argonne’s Mitch Farmer receives Secretary’s Achievement Honor Award — EESA News Release (Oct. 27, 2011)
- 2006 R&D 100 Awards: Materials Resistant to
Metal Dusting Degradation
Production of more durable equipment for use in plants that manufacture hydrogen
Related Documents
Fact Sheets:
IMPORTANT NOTE:
Documents listed in this page are in PDF format.
Download the latest and free version of Adobe's
Reader to view documents in PDF format. Problems with viewing/printing the PDF files:
PDF Help Notes (link opens in new browser
window).
- Generation IV (Gen IV) Program -
Fact Sheet
[ PDF,
74 KB] - Decommissioning Program
[ PDF, 135 KB]
Last Modified: Wed, February 13, 2013 7:51 PM
