Direct Air Cycle Reactor
Development at the General Electric's Lockland, Ohio, plant are well into
the hardware stage, and fuel elements are being fabricated for the reactor
core which will be used in the Heat Transfer Reactor Experiment (HTRE) next
year. The schedule calls for installation of this core, with a rating of 20 MW
of heat, in the Core Test Facility at Arco late in 1955.
The next step is a
40 MW reactor, of the physical dimensions which would go into an aircraft, in
late 1956 or early 1957,
Following this, a first ground-test prototype is
scheduled for 1958 and probably a second one in 1959.
By 1960 they hope to
have a nuclear power plant suitable for flight testing.
This would probably
be in the range of 160 MW.
G.E.'s concept of the propulsion cycle involves blowing air from a compressor with a 14-to-l compression-ratio through the reactor, where it is
heated to about 1700°F and then enters the turbine.
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sible turbine inlet temperatures are 1700°F.)
(Present maximum permis-
Chemical fuel is used in an
after-burner when high power is needed for take-off, sprint, etc.
Chemical
fuel may also be bled in between reactor and turbine as desired.
(Such uses
of chemical fuel are also applicable in the sodium-cooled system.)
A typical
study results in an airplane of 435,000 lbs gross weight, containing 106,000
lbs of chemical fuel and 170,000 lbs for reactors, engines, reactor shield
and crew shield.
The shields themselves total about 100,000 lbs.
A reactor
might feed more than one engine, and some of the engines might be only
chemically-fueled.
The fuel elements for the Heat Transfer Reactor Experiment are made by
powder metallurgy as a ribbon in which grains of UQ5 are sandwiched in