Further process heat engineering design studies for very-high-temperature reactors. Final report

The results of a study performed to investigate process heat applications of a very-high-temperature gas-cooled reactor (VHTR) are presented. In previous reports, conceptual VHTR plant and component designs were presented in detail for the steam-hydrocarbon reforming process in both integrated and intermediate loop configurations, all with unbalanced pressure reformer designs. In the unbalanced pressure design, the reformer pressure is significantly lower than the helium pressure in order to enhance the reforming reaction. In this report, balanced pressure designs are presented in which the reformer pressure is slightly higher than the helium pressure in order to minimize leakage and structural loads. This report explores the economic effect of balanced pressure reformer designs and describes additional work on the VHTR materials selection problem