5 ms·
@ Melting down fuel to determine its properties, the US just restarted a facility that does exactly that! The TREAT reactor purposely melts fuel to determine it
by transistor-man 8y ago
@ Melting down fuel to determine its properties, the US just restarted a facility that does exactly that! The TREAT reactor purposely melts fuel to determine its failure points and to study new cladding materials.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transient_Reactor_Test_Facility_(TREAT) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transient_Reactor_Test_Facilit...
- ChuckMcM 8y agoVery cool with a link to a video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0o4P_F4s9s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0o4P_F4s9s where you can watch a fuel rod actually melt. Glad to hear they restarted it last year for additional research into these topics.
- nate_meurer 8y agoHoly shit, wikipedia says it handles transients of up to 19 GW. They don't say for how long, but the transient control rod actuators take a quarter second to cover their full range, so I'm guessing that means 19 GW for up to a quarter second. That's about 4.5 gigajoules. As it happens, that's roughly the explosive energy of 1 ton of TNT. From a reactor core the size of a small closet. Makes me wonder, in fascinated terror, what power output we're seeing in that video. Wikipedia says it can simulate six different reactor loop types. This is a seriously impressive facility.