Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology, Tsinghua University
🇨🇳 Beijing, CN · Active
Also known as INET, Tsinghua INET
The Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology (INET) is Tsinghua University's nuclear engineering institute. It built the HTR-10, a 10 MW-thermal pebble-bed high-temperature gas-cooled test reactor approved in 1992 that reached full power in 2003. In these reactors the fuel is packed in graphite balls (pebbles) and cooled by helium. INET then designed the HTR-PM, a two-reactor demonstration power plant of 210 MWe whose first concrete was poured in Rongcheng, Shandong, in December 2012; its site says the plant was built with Huaneng and CNNC. It also designs the NHR200-II, a low-temperature district heating reactor.
- Sector
- Fission
- Technology
- High-temperature gas-cooled reactor
- Fuel
- TRISO particle fuel
- Role
- Research institute, University, Reactor developer
Terms
- High-temperature gas-cooled reactor
- Helium-cooled and graphite-moderated, running far hotter than a water reactor. Fuel is TRISO particles, typically formed into pebbles or prismatic blocks, at LEU or HALEU enrichment depending on the design. The high outlet temperature suits industrial process heat as well as electricity.
- TRISO particle fuel
- Fuel kernels about the size of a poppy seed, each wrapped in layers of carbon and silicon carbide, so every particle acts as a tiny containment for its own fission products. The US Department of Energy reports that irradiated particles came through more than 300 hours of testing at temperatures up to 1,800 °C with no to minimal damage. That record covers the particle designs, temperatures and burnups actually tested; a claim outside that envelope is not covered by it.