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Development of High Temperature Out-of-Pile Experiments for Testing Nuclear Thermal Propulsion Fuel Surrogates...

by Richard H Howard
Publication Type
Conference Paper
Book Title
Conference proceedings
Publication Date
Conference Name
Nuclear and Emerging Technologies for Space (NETS) 2018
Conference Location
Las Vegas, Nevada, United States of America
Conference Sponsor
American Nuclear Society
Conference Date
-

Nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) technology is designed to provide “in-space” vehicle propulsion by deriving thrust from a hydrogen working fluid that is heated from a nuclear reaction. Initial NTP fuel structures (primarily carbon/carbide based materials) developed by the Rover/NERVA program were designed to withstand temperatures exceeding 2400 K and remain intact after tens of firing cycles. Current programs responsible for development of this technology expect the fuels to withstand temperatures in excess of 2550K under a similar duty cycle. Experiments that subject fuels to these conditions are being developed to provide data and performance information for optimization and potential down-selection of the candidate materials. Initial tests will be designed for laboratory benchtop operation and will not expose surrogate specimens to the hydrogen working fluid or irradiation fields. The primary focus of these out-of-pile experiments will be to study thermal performance and thermal failure limits of the candidate specimen materials.