Abstract
The molten salt reactor (MSR) is one of the six advanced reactor concepts selected by Generation IV International Forum (GIF) because of its inherent safety and the promising capabilities of TRU transmutation and Th-U breeding. In this study, a three-dimensional thermal-hydraulic model (3DTH) is developed for evaluating the steady-state performance of the graphite-moderated channel type MSR. The coupled code is developed by exchanging the power distribution, temperature, and fuel density distribution between SCALE and 3DTH. Firstly, the thermal-hydraulic model of the coupled code is validated by RELAP5 code. Then, the mass flow distribution, temperature field, keff, and power density distribution for a conceptual design of the 2MWt experimental molten salt reactor are calculated and analyzed by the coupled code under both normal operating situation and the central fuel assembly partly blocked situation. The simulated results are conductive to facilitate the understanding of the steady behavior of the graphite-moderated channel type MSR.
Highlights
The research on MSR concept can date back to the 1940s1960s with the project of the aircraft reactor experiment (ARE) [1] and the molten salt reactor experiment (MSRE) [2, 3] in Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)
The 3DTH developed in the current study enables us to perform calculations on both unstructured and structured mesh, which is capable of accurately modeling a complex geometry
A special steady-state analysis code for the channel type MSR is developed by coupling the SCALE and the three-dimensional thermal-hydraulic model (3DTH)
Summary
The research on MSR concept can date back to the 1940s1960s with the project of the aircraft reactor experiment (ARE) [1] and the molten salt reactor experiment (MSRE) [2, 3] in Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The temperature field in the graphite moderator was calculated by the three-dimensional heat conduction equation on a structured mesh. Many tools have been developed for the graphite-moderated channel type MSR, most of them only adopt the one-dimensional heat conduction model for the moderator and neglect the thermal coupling of the adjacent assemblies. One objective of the present work is to develop an accurate three-dimensional thermal-hydraulic model (named 3DTH hereinafter), which can calculate the temperature field in complex geometries on an unstructured mesh and consider the thermal coupling between different assemblies. A coupled code is developed through exchanging the data between 3DTH and the reactor criticality safety analyses software SCALE [20] and is applied to the steady-state analysis of a conceptual design of the 2MWt experimental molten salt reactor (named 2MW-MSR hereinafter) [21].
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