Surface fission power systems for use on the Moon and Mars may provide the first use of near‐term reactor technology in space. Most near‐term surface reactor concepts specify reactor temperatures <1000 K to allow the use of established material and power conversion technology and minimize the impact of the in‐situ environment. Metal alloy fuels (e.g. U‐10Zr and U‐10Mo) have not traditionally been considered for space reactors because of high‐temperature requirements, but they might be an attractive option for these lower temperature surface power missions. In addition to temperature limitations, metal fuels are also known to swell significantly at rather low fuel burnups (∼1 a/o), but near‐term surface missions can mitigate this concern as well, because power and lifetime requirements generally keep fuel burnups <1 a/o. If temperature and swelling issues are not a concern, then a surface reactor concept may be able to benefit from the high uranium density and relative ease of manufacture of metal fuels. This paper investigates two reactor concepts that utilize metal fuels. It is found that these concepts compare very well to concepts that utilize other fuels (UN, UO2, UZrH) on a mass basis, while also providing the potential to simplify material safeguards issues.
Evaluation of Metal‐Fueled Surface Reactor Concepts
SPACE TECHNOLOGY AND APPLICATIONS INTERNATIONAL FORUM-STAIF 2007: 11th Conf Thermophys.Applic.in Micrograv.; 24th Symp Space Nucl.Pwr.Propulsion; 5th Conf Hum/Robotic Techn & Vision Space Explor.; 5th Symp Space Coloniz.; 4th Symp New Frontrs & Future Con ; 2007 ; Albuquerque, New Mexico (USA)
AIP Conference Proceedings ; 880 , 1 ; 149-156
2007-01-30
8 pages
Conference paper
Electronic Resource
English
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