ORNL-1816 - the Molten Salt Energy Technologies Web Site

ANP QUARTERLY PROGRESS REPORT
as an integrated system, irrespective of the type
of test installation chosen. In all but the fourth
installation, the assembled reactor would be surrounded
by an aircraft type of shield of lead and
borated water, and, in all installations, it would
be coupled to heat dumps consisting of banks of
aircraft-type NaK-to-air radiators through which
cooling air would be circulated. Appropriate confro1
systems, along with auxiliary shielding, equipment,
and services, would comprise the balance of
the test installation. A generalized flow sheet for
this setup was shown in Fig. 2.1 of the previous
rterIy progress report.7
All but the first of the above-listed installations
would be located in Oak Ridge. The first installation
is illustrated in Fig. 2.4. It was devised to
permit operation of the reactor surrounded by an
aircraft-type shield with a heat dump on either side
simulate the turbojet engines. Of the installadered,
it offers the most compact
of the equipment with the least amount
of shielding and minimum provision for containment.
This scheme was developed with the thought
that it could be built in Oak Ridge so that all the
welding of high-temperature-liquid piping could be
made, inspected, and pressure tested and some
preliminary testing carried out, probably including
a hot critical experiment, before the unit was
shipped to NRTS. The dimensions of the unit are
such that it would fit on a flat car and comply
with standard railroad side and overhead clearance
regulations. To do this, it would be necessary to
dismount certain elements, such as the pump drive
motors, the blowers, and the blower drive motors.
This could be done easily, since only bolted connections
would be involved, The reactor would be
set up with a heavy, water-cooled pan beneath it.
This pan would catch, hold, and cool the fuel in
the event of an accident. A control room would be
built as a unit and shipped to NRTS on a second
flat car. The contrd room and the reactor would
probably be placed a quarter of a mile to a mile
apart, and the two would be coupled by telemetering
ipment. The pumps in the layout are shown as
ing driven by d-c electric motors, but air turbine
tors would serve equally well if a source of
ed air were available. If the tests were
RTS and Air Force, portable, gas-turbinetype
air compressors were used, a compressed air
'A. P. Fraas, ANP Quar. Prog. Rep. Sept. IO, 1954,
ORNL-1771, p 21.
30
source might be more easily arranged than a d-c
generator set.
In examining the NRTS installation design, a
number of points became evident. First, the prob-
lems associated with operating a reactor at NRTS
seem to be rather serious, particularly from the
standpoint of the amount of time that would be
lost in maintaining an operation 2000 miles from
Oak Ridge, The distance would make it particu-
larly difficult to cope with unforseen problems.
Any relatively small difficulty that might arise
would be likely to introduce a major delay if that
difficulty were not forseen. It appears therefore
that an NRTS installation would entail a loss of at
least six months in getting the reactor into opera-
tion, The second major point that developed in
connection with the examination of the design was
that the major hazards appeared to be much less
serious than had originally been presumed, The
very compact installation achieved through careful
design directed toward simulation of a full-scale
aircraft type of power plant led to a very low in-
vestment of sodium and NaK, about one-twentieth
of that required for the KAPL-SIR reactor designed
for the same power level. Further, the use of
circulating fuel with its high negative temperature
coefficient gives a reactor in which a nuclear
explosion seems almost out of the question.
In view of the relatively small amounts of energy
released under conditions of a total reactor tragedy,
designs were prepared for the installation of the
ART in a closed building. The layout shown in
Fig. 2.5 envisions a sort of circular Quonset
building about 200 ft in diameter. The test unit
would be built and operated on the test floor
behind supplementary shielding, and a heavy,
water-cooled pan would be placed beneath the
reactor, This pan would catch, hold, and cool the
fuel in the event of an accident. Such an arrange-
ment would give plenty of floor area in a relatively
inexpensive building that could be sealed to con-
tain any fission products that might be released,
in line with the philosophy underlying the use of
the Hortonsphere at KAPL. A similar type of
building, but shaped as a hemisphere rather than
as the circular Quonset building, might be used
in order to reduce the amount of steel required in
the framing of the building.
The arrangement shown in Fig. 2.6 follows a
quite different philosophy. It provides for con-
taining the reactor assembly within a pressure