Accelerator Pulsed Fast Assembly

An accelerator pulsed fast reactor has been constructed and placed in operation at General Atomic. A 20 megawatt L-band electron accelerator drives a super-critical U-235 metal reactor. This device has the unique characteristic that peak power and pulse width can be varied independently by adjusting various accelerator and reactor parameters. Pulse widths range from less than 0.1 ¿sec to 5 ¿sec and the fast fluxes attainable are in excess of 5 ¿ 1015 n/cm2/sec at the surface and about an order of magnitude higher internally. Further improvements are planned to increase these yields by an order of magnitude. In addition to single pulse operation, these devices can be repetitively pulsed up to several pulses per second to provide high intensity fast or thermal fluxes if some means of cooling the fuel is provided.