Mechanical Engineering Research Associate Professor Mustafa Hadj-Nacer and Professor Miles Greiner have received a 0,000 grant from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to research safe transport of factory-built nuclear microreactors.
The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and international industries are developing advanced factory-built nuclear reactors that are compact enough to be rapidly deployed to disaster, military and other sites that require immediate, long-lasting electric power. Some designs would be shipped containing highly radioactive nuclear fuel.
“This work will be the first of its kind to evaluate fire safety risks of microreactors transport and ways to help the NRC mitigate them,” Hadj-Nacer said. “We hope this will lead to future implementation of these advanced microreactors.”
Federal regulations require that microreactor transport be just as safe as the transport of nuclear fuel in thick-walled casks. Those casks are designed to be conveyed on general highways, railway and waterways, according to Greiner, who sits on the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, the independent agency that reviews the DOE’s nuclear waste management activities.
To provide the same level of safety, microreactor transport may require specialized procedures. These may include routes that avoid steep drop-offs, large sources of combustible materials, low speeds and/or temporary closing routes to other traffic. The new research will use Computational Fluid Dynamics to simulate the response of microreactors to accidental fires. This will help the NRC develop regulations to avoid fire risks.
“Today, innovative nuclear reactors are being developed that are not only transportable, but compared to current fleet, they are even safer, more easily and quickly constructed, and their wastes are more compact,” Greiner said. “The NRC creates and enforces regulations to ensure that these innovations operate as intended. We are happy to have the opportunity to help the NRC do this important work.”
Hadj-Nacer and Greiner direct the w88 online live casino, Reno’s Nuclear Packaging Laboratory, which develops and experimentally validates computational methods to predict the performance of nuclear packages under normal and severe fire accident conditions.
