Research History
Past pilot and demonstration projects have all used thermal designs with graphite moderators. As such, no true gas-cooled fast reactor design has ever been brought to criticality. The main challenges that have yet to be overcome are in-vessel structural materials, both in-core and out-of-core, that will have to withstand fast-neutron damage and high temperatures, (up to 1600 °C). Another problem is the low thermal inertia and poor heat removal capability at low helium pressures, although these issues are shared with thermal reactors which have been constructed.
Gas-cooled projects include decommissioned reactors such as the Dragon Project, built and operated in the United Kingdom, the AVR and the THTR-300, built and operated in Germany, and Peach Bottom and Fort St. Vrain, built and operated in the United States. Ongoing demonstrations include the HTTR in Japan, which reached full power (30 MWth) using fuel compacts inserted in prismatic blocks in 1999, and the HTR-10 in China, which may reach 10 MWth in 2002 using pebble fuel. A 400 MWth pebble bed modular reactor demonstration plant was designed by PBMR Pty for deployment in South Africa but withdrawn in 2010, and a consortium of Russian institutes is designing a 600 MWth GT-MHR (prismatic block reactor) in cooperation with General Atomics. In 2010, General Atomics announced the Energy Multiplier Module reactor design, an advanced version of the GT-MHR.
Read more about this topic: Gas-cooled Fast Reactor
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