Research

Nuclear Thermal Propulsion

Gas Core Reactors

Ultrahigh Temperature Materials

Research in the ultrahigh temperature materials laboratory at INSPI is primarily focused on the development of nuclear fuel and related high temperature materials.  Advanced nuclear fuels are under development and testing to enable a manned mission to mars using high performance nuclear thermal propulsion methods.  These ultra-high temperature mixed uranium/refractory metal carbides can operate at temperatures as high as 3000 K (~5000 F) for a specific impulse as high as 1000 sec.  Current efforts are directed toward the development of processing techniques for producing single phase, solid solutions of these mixed carbides.  Efforts at testing these materials to determine their performance characteristics are also being investigated.

Computational Fluid Dynamics

INSPI computational fluid and gas dynamic with heat transfer modeling is an advanced system of codes under development for analysis of all microscopic and macroscopic heat transfer phenomena associated with energy conversion in reactor space systems. In particular, a two-phase computational fluid dynamic model is under development to provide detailed analysis of micro boiling convection and condensation in complex geometries of space power reactors and energy conversion systems.