Abstract
Molten salt reactors as liquid-fuelled reactors are flexible in terms of operation or design choices, but they are very different in terms of design, operation and safety approach compared to solid-fuelled reactors. Such reactors call for a new definition of their operating procedures and safety approach. Dedicated developments and studies have been performed in the frame of the European SAMOFAR project of Horizon2020 and in parallel in France involving CNRS, CORYS and Framatome to develop a system code called LiCore adapted to such reactors, corresponding to a basic-principle power plant simulator. The neutronic model LiCore, at the centre of the simulator, corresponds to an improved point-kinetics model to take into account the specificities of a MSR, notably the circulation of the delayed neutron precursors out of the core. Coupled to a simple piston model for the fuel motion in the core, this code can perform calculations faster than real time to simulate the behaviour of the fuel circuit. Transient calculations performed with LiCore are presented, together with comparisons first to a simple point-kinetics model and then to 3D calculations with the TFM-OpenFOAM coupled code. Finally, the LiCore code has recently been integrated in the ALICES platform, the integrated simulation toolset designed by CORYS for the development, maintenance and operation of major simulator such as power plant simulators.
Highlights
Molten salt reactors as liquid-fuelled reactors are flexible in terms of operation or design choices, but they are very different in terms of design, operation and safety approach compared to solid-fuelled reactors
Dedicated developments and studies have been performed in the frame of the European SAMOFAR project of Horizon2020 and in parallel in France involving Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), CORYS and Framatome to develop a system code called LiCore adapted to such reactors, corresponding to a basic-principle power plant simulator
The LiCore code has recently been integrated in the ALICES platform, the integrated simulation toolset designed by CORYS for the development, maintenance and operation of major simulator such as power plant simulators
Summary
Since 20 years, the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS, Grenoble-France) with French and European partners has focused R&D efforts on the development of a new molten salt reactor concept called. R&D activities are currently underway to ascertain whether MSFR systems can satisfy the goals of Generation-IV reactors in terms of sustainability, resource saving (closed fuel cycle, no uranium enrichment) and waste management (actinide burner), non-proliferation (integrated fuel cycle, multi-recycling of actinides), economics and safety. This has required the development of specific simulation tools to study such reactors with a liquid circulating fuel [2] acting as coolant. The idea is to add a complete simulation of the intermediate and energy conversion circuits This new version allows the study of the whole MSFR system, up to the definition of the operating procedures of the reactor. Some of the transient studies of the MSFR done by Framatome and CNRS using the LiCore code will be detailed in the article
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