General Atomics Finalizes Concept for New Fast Reactor Design

General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems has successfully completed the conceptual design of a new helium gas-cooled fast reactor.    

The company’s advanced reactor design is one of three early-stage concept projects the U.S. Department of Energy supported under its Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program. 

Proof of Concept 

General Atomics demonstrated feasibility of their fast modular reactor (FMR) design through various modeling and lab-scale tests to verify the performance of key safety systems, fuel, and operations — allowing them to start maturing the technology to a preliminary design phase for potential demonstration in the 2030s.  

Completed work also included the fabrication of sample fuel rods that match the design intended for use in the FMR. 

The company is developing a gas-cooled modular reactor that can be made in factories and assembled on-site to deliver 44 megawatts of firm power on as little as .2 acres of land. 

The reactor is designed to also pair with an air-cooling system for potential deployment in remote or arid locations and runs on silicon carbide-wrapped high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) fuel that can withstand temperatures twice as high as fuel claddings currently used in light-water reactors.  

The FMR’s conceptual design work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy through an Advanced Reactor Concepts 2020 (ARC-20) award, part of the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program.  

Funding supported General Atomics’ strategic partnerships with other companies, academia and national laboratories to successfully verify the technical feasibility of the FMR design, helping to progress the advanced reactor design in its early phase. 

"The ARC-20 program has supported critical advances in the Gas-cooled Fast Reactor concept and demonstration of robust materials that enable an added layer of safety, while still enabling operation without the need for a water source.  These features facilitate siting and compatibility for small communities and diverse applications, including the recycling of used nuclear fuel," said Dr. Christina Back, Vice President of General Atomics. 

What’s Next? 

General Atomics has submitted their Principal Design Criteria and the Quality Assurance Plan Description licensing documents to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The NRC also docketed several pre-application FMR documents that will be referenced in the future license application when General Atomics submits future formal licensing documents.  

With the completion of the conceptual design, General Atomics is moving on to technology maturation and the preliminary design phase. 

The prototypes of the FMR fuel rods fabricated during the conceptual design process are undergoing irradiation testing at Idaho National Laboratory to experimentally verify their integrity.  

Future planned activities include safety-related testing, and maturing fuel, materials, and power conversion system components. Work will lead to the final design phase, which will include construction, non-nuclear tests, and receiving HALEU for fuel fabrication.