Advanced Reactor Demonstration Projects
NRIC provides coordination and leadership for the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Projects (ARDP) Program. An NRIC or INL coordinator is assigned to each project to assist with reporting capabilities. Monthly and quarterly meetings are held with INL leadership to reporting the status of status each project. During these meetings lessons learned and challenges are discussed as well as upcoming milestones, the financial and schedule status, and recent accomplishments. This is an opportunity for coordinators to alert INL management of any issues that require assistance.
In addition to providing coordination and leadership, NRIC provides digital engineering and project management support for these projects. This includes requirements management tools, configuration management tools and support, system architecting, model-based system engineering, three-dimensional modeling and design tools, digital twin support, and PLM type tools.
| Project Title | Company | Coordinator | Scope |
|---|---|---|---|
| Xe-100 High-temperature gas reactor | X-energy | Luke Voss | Monte Carlo N-Particulate (MCNP), Cross-section library generation, multi-group transient (MGT) model review, Methods for Estimation of Leakages and Consequences of Releases (MELCOR) simulations, fuel qualification, post-irradiation examination (PIE) |
| Natrium Sodium-cooled fast reactor + molten salt energy storage system | TerraPower | Caysie Marshall | Support Natrium through the execution of fuelrelated R&D, including irradiation testing, fabrication, method development, PIE, and the implementation of digital engineering practices. 20+ total projects to meet these goals. |
| BANR-1 High-temperature gas-cooled microreactor | BWX-Technologies (BWXT) | Chris Turner | Irradiation and PIE of BWXT uranium nitride (UN) TRISO |
| Molten Chloride Reactor Experiment (MCRE) Fast spectrum salt reactor | Southern | James King | Design, construct, and operate a fast spectrum, liquid-chloride-salt fueled experimental reactor. |