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Feasibility Study of a Micro Modular Reactor for Military Ground Applications

Kenneth S Allen *,Samuel K Hartford ,Gregory J Merkel

In this research the feasibility of the Holos Highly Integrated Micro Modular Reactor (HI-MMR), developed by Filippone and Associates LLC, is studied as a power source for military ground deployment. The Holos HI-MMR is a thermal gas-cooled reactor designed to generate 30 MWt. A model of the reactor was created in the Monte Carlo N-Particle code MCNP 6.1 to obtain the basic parameters of criticality and an estimate of burnup. The reactor design uses tristructural-isotropic (TRISO fuel), which was modeled as a homogeneous mixture at ten percent enrichment. At ten percent 235U, the k-effective value of the reactor was found to be 1.05810 ± 0.00166 at beginning of life (BOL). Based on burnup calculations, the reactor will last 13 years before requiring refueling. A value comparison to current configurations of diesel generators used in forward military operation bases was then performed using a baseline of $7 per gallon of diesel. In a case study of Bagram airfield, the Holos reactor was found to have a value of 7.03 out of 10 versus the current diesel generator configuration, which had a value of 4.15. Both of these values are found against criteria developed in this paper.