SUMMARY

Current designs are focusing on low enriched uranium fuel systems to reduce development costs and regulatory concerns. These designs require careful examination to identify an engine that is able to satisfy NASA’s requirements. Previous work has focused on low enriched, but for limited cases of fuel options, and without a fully integrated computational framework and assumed boundary conditions. This thesis study relies on and extends on previously published NASA studies for low enriched fuel systems. Integrated system analyses are developed to account for neutronic, thermal-hydraulic, and system effects on engine performance. The results show that using an integrated system analysis approach yields a systematic assessment and identifies an ideal design space for future higher fidelity analysis to achieve mission needs set by NASA.