The final reactor in the SNAP-8 testing and development series, the SNAP-8 Development Reactor was a shorter-lived reactor, in part because many of the questions that needed to be answered about the geometry had been answered by the S8ER, and partly because the unanswered materials questions were able to be answered with the SCA4 reactor. This reactor underwent dry critical testing in June 1968, and power testing began at the beginning of the next year. From January 1969 to December 1969, when the reactor was shut down for the final time, the reactor operated at nominal (600 kWt) power for 668 hours, and operated at 1000 kWt for 429 hours.
The SNAP-8 Development Reactor (S8DR) was installed in the same facility as the S8ER, although it operated under different conditions than the S8ER. Instead of having a cover gas, the S8DR was tested in a vacuum, and a flight-type radiation shield was mounted below it to facilitate shielding design and materials choices. Fuel loading began on June 18, 1968, and criticality was achieved on June 22, with 169 out of the 211 fuel elements containing the U-ZrH fuel (the rest of the fuel elements were stainless steel “dummy” elements) installed in the core. Reactivity experiments for the control mechanisms were carried out before the remainder of the dummy fuel elements were replaced with actual fuel in order to better calibrate the system.
Finally, on June 28, all the fuel was loaded and the final calibration experiments were carried out. These tests then led to automatic startup testing of the reactor, beginning on December 13, 1968, as well as transient analysis, flow oscillation, and temperature reactivity coefficient testing on the reactor. From January 10 to 15, 1969, the reactor was started using the proposed automated startup process a total of five times, proving the design concept.
1969 saw the beginning of full-power testing, with the ramp up to full design power occurring on January 17. Beginning at 25% power, the reactor was stepped up to 50% after 8 hours, then another 8 hours in it was brought up to full power. The coolant flow rates in both the primary and secondary loops started at full flow, then were reduced to maintain design operating temperatures, even at the lower power setting. Immediately following these tests on January 23, an additional set of testing was done to verify that the power conversion system would start up as well. The biggest challenge was verification that the initial injection of mercury into the boiler would operate as expected, so a series of mercury injection tests were carried out successfully. While they weren’t precisely at design conditions due to test stand limitations, the tests were close enough that it was possible to verify that the design would work as planned.
After these tests, the endurance testing of the reactor began. From January 25 to February 24 was the 500-hour test at design conditions (600 kWt and 1300 F), although there were two scram incidents that led to short interruptions. Starting on March 20, the 9000 hour endurance run at design conditions lasted until April 10. This was followed by a ramp up to the alternate design power of 1 MWt. While this was meant to operate at only 1100 F (to reduce thermal stress on the fuel elements, among other things), the airblast heat exchanger used for heat rejection couldn’t keep up with the power flow at that temperature, so the outlet temperature was increased to 1150 F (the greater the temperature difference between a radiator and its environment, the more efficient it is, something we’ll discuss more in the heat rejection posts). After 18 days of 1 MWt testing, the power was once again reduced to 600 kWt for another 9000 hour test, but on June 1, the reactor scrammed itself again due to a loss of coolant flow. At this point, there was a significant loss of reactivity in the core, which led the team to decide to proceed at a lower temperature to mitigate hydrogen migration in the fuel elements. Sadly, reducing the outlet temperature (to 1200 F) wasn’t enough to prevent this test from ending prematurely due to a severe loss in reactivity, and the reactor scrammed itself again.
The final power test on the S8ER began on November 20, 1969. For the first 11 days, it operated at 300 kWt and 1200 F, when it was then increased in power back to 600 kWt, but the outlet temperature was reduced to 1140F, for an additional 7 days. An increase of outlet temperature back to 1200 F was then dialed in for the final 7 days of the test, and then the reactor was shut down.
This shutdown was an interesting and long process, especially compared to just removing all the reactivity of the control drums by rotating them all fully out. First, the temperature was dropped to 1000 F while the reactor was still at 600 kWt, and then the reactor’s power was reduced to the point that both the outlet and inlet coolant temperatures were 800 F. This was held until December 21 to study the xenon transient behavior, and then the temperatures were further reduced to 400 F to study the decay power level of the reactor. On January 7, the temperature was once again increased to 750 F, and two days later the coolant was removed. The core temperature then dropped steadily before leveling off at 180-200F.
Once again, the reactor was disassembled and examined at the Hot Laboratory, with special attention being paid to the fuel elements. These fuel elements held up much better than the S8ER’s fuel elements, with only 67 of the 211 fuel elements showing cracking. However, quite a few elements, while not cracked, showed significant dimensional changes and higher hydrogen loss rates. Another curiosity was that a thin (less than 0.1 mil thick) metal film, made up of iron, nickel, and chromium, developed fairly quickly on the exterior of the cladding (the exact composition changed based on location, and therefore on local temperature, within the core and along each fuel element).
The fuel elements that had intact cladding and little to no deformation showed very low hydrogen migration, an average of 2.4% (this is consistent with modeling showing that the permeation barrier was damaged early in its life, perhaps during the 1 MWt run). However, those with some damage lost between 6.8% and 13.2 percent of their hydrogen. This damage wasn’t limited to just cracked cladding, though – the swelling of the fuel element was a better indication of the amount of hydrogen lost than the clad itself being split. This is likely due to phase changes in the fuel elements, when the UzrH changes crystalline structure, usually due to high temperatures. This changes how well – and at what bond angle – the hydrogen is kept within the fuel element’s crystalline structure, and can lead to more intense hot spots in the fuel element, causing the problem to become worse. The loss of reactivity scrams from the testing in May-July 1969 seem to be consistent with the worst failures in the fuel elements, called Type 3 in the reports: high hydrogen loss, highly oval cross section of the swollen fuel elements (there were a total of 31 of these, 18 of them were intact, 13 were cracked). One interesting note about the clad composition is that where there was a higher copper content due to irregularities in metallography there was far less swelling of the Hastelloy N clad, although the precise mechanism was not understood at the time (and my rather cursory perusal of current literature didn’t show any explanation either). However, at the time testing showed that these problems could be mitigated, to the point of insignificance even, by maintaining a lower core temperature to ensure localized over-temperature failures (like the changes in crystalline structure) would not occur.
The best thing that can be said about the reactivity loss rate (partially due to hydrogen losses, and partially due to fission product buildup) is that it was able to be extrapolated given the data available, and that the failure would have occurred after the design’s required lifetime (had S8DR been operated at design temperature and power, the reactor would have lost all excess reactivity – and therefore the ability to maintain criticality – between October and November of 1970).
On this mixed news note, the reactor’s future was somewhat in doubt. NASA was certainly still interested in a nuclear reactor of a similar core power, but this particular configuration was neither the most useful to their needs, nor was it exceptionally hopeful in many of the particulars of its design. While NASA’s reassessment of the program was not solely due to the S8DR’s testing history, this may have been a contributing factor.
References and Further Reading
Overall Program
Summary of SNAP 8 Development Reactor Operations, Felten and May 1973 https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/4456300
FUNCTIONAL DESIGN DESCRIPTION AND TEST SUMMARY OF THE SNAP 8 DEVELOPMENT REACTOR MOCKUP-1, Kurzeka 1967 https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/4480191
Systems Design and Testing
SNAP-8 Automatic Startup and PCS Mercury Injection Simulation Tests, Audiette AI 1969
https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/4726545
Fuel Element Development and Analysis
SNAP-8 Development Reactor Fuel Element Fabrication, McClelland AI 1969
https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/4225800
Structural Analysis of the SNAP 8 Development Reactor Fuel Cladding, Dalcher 1969 https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/6315913
Post Irradiation
EFFECT OF S8DR CHROMIUM DIFFUSION TREATMENT ON THE CREEP RUPTURE PROPERTIES OF PROCESSED HASTELLOY-N TUBING, Allaria AI 1967 https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/6315885
Nuclear Design and Analysis
SNAP-8 Development Reactor Nuclear Analysis, Swenson AI 1969
https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/4709921
S8DR Core Performance Evaluation, Swenson 1967 https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/4483429
Comparison of Calculated and Experimental Reactivities of SNAP Reactors, Bost AI 1971 https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/4174742
Component Design, Development, and Analysis
Stress Analysis of S8DS Core Vessel Assembly, Kubota AI 1965 https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/4659199
S8DR Actuator Interim Report, Long AI 1967
https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/4557835
S8DR Actuator Final Report, Donelan AI 1970
https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/4153456
S8DR Temperature Switch Development and Testing, Powers AI 1968
https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/4527543
Safety and Decommissioning
SNAP 8 Development Reactor (S8DR) Safety Analysis Report Addendum 1, Roecker AI 1968
https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/4793646
Progress Reports
Major Activities in the Atomic Energy Programs, Report to Congress AEC 1965, (SNAP 8 program begins on pg 169 of PDF) https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1364370
Major Activities in the Atomic Energy Programs, Report to Congress AEC 1966, (SNAP 8 program begins on pg 213 of PDF)
https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1364385