General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems has completed the conceptual design of a new helium gas-cooled fast reactor. The fast modular reactor (FMR) design is one of three early-stage concept projects supported by the US Department of Energy (DOE) Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP).
General Atomics is developing a gas-cooled modular reactor that can be made in factories and assembled on-site to deliver 44 megawatts of firm power on as little as 0.2 acres (809 square metres) of land. The reactor is also designed to pair with an air-cooling system for potential deployment in remote or arid locations. It uses silicon carbide-wrapped high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) fuel that can withstand temperatures twice as high as fuel claddings currently used in light-water reactors.
The feasibility of the FMR design was demonstrated through various modelling and lab-scale tests to verify the performance of key safety systems, fuel, and operations. This will make it possible to start maturing the technology to a preliminary design phase for potential demonstration in the 2030s. Completed work also included fabrication of sample fuel rods that match the design intended for use in the FMR.
The conceptual design work was supported by DOE through an Advanced Reactor Concepts 2020 (ARC-20) award under the ARDP. The funding supported General Atomics’ strategic partnerships with other companies, academia and national laboratories to verify the technical feasibility of the FMR design, helping to progress the advanced reactor design in its early phase.
“The ARC-20 programme has supported critical advances in the gas-cooled fast reactor concept and demonstration of robust materials that enable an added layer of safety, while still enabling operation without the need for a water source,” said General Atomics Vice President Dr Christina Back. “These features facilitate siting and compatibility for small communities and diverse applications, including the recycling of used nuclear fuel.”
With the completion of the conceptual design, General Atomics is moving on to technology maturation and the preliminary design phase. The prototypes of the FMR fuel rods fabricated during the conceptual design process are undergoing irradiation testing at Idaho National Laboratory to experimentally verify their integrity.
Future planned activities include safety-related testing, and maturing fuel, materials, and power conversion system components. Work will lead to the final design phase, which will include construction, non-nuclear tests, and receiving HALEU for fuel fabrication.
General Atomics has submitted their Principal Design Criteria and the Quality Assurance Plan Description licensing documents to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). NRC has docketed several pre-application FMR documents that will be referenced in the future license application when future formal licensing documents.
