Conceptual design of gas cartridge loop components for the Versatile Test Reactor

Abstract

In continuation of the Gas Cartridge Loop (GCL) development for the Versatile Test Reactor (VTR), General Atomics-Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) conducted conceptual design studies of the GCL major components such as test articles, electromagnetic (EM) motor, heating elements, instrumentation and control (I&C), and pressure vessel. While the pre-conceptual design used a single test article and estimated the heating and cooling requirements of the GCL, the conceptual design used three test articles, with a reduced height by a factor of two, to enhance better experimental capabilities. The thermal-fluid analysis determined the performance requirements of the motor and heater, and confirmed the gas-cooled fast reactor (GFR) experimental conditions are achieved with the total test article power of 16.5 kW compared with 11 kW of the pre-conceptual design.The conceptual design of the motor is a four-pole three-phase high temperature induction motor. The motor and heater were designed with a 30% margin to the required power. Investigation was conducted on different heating element technologies, such as Nichrome, Kanthal, MoSi2, and SiC, for their temperature and power density limits. The conceptual design of the heater focused on material selection for the metal sheath and the heater rod arrangements. I&C design elaborated and clarified the conceptual design by defining the control logic and required number of lines for the redundancy and availability of the sensors and detectors of the GCL. Mechanical design analysis of the GCL pressure vessel conducted during the pre-conceptual design is still valid for the design limits of the stress and strain.