Transient thermal‐hydraulic analysis of heat pipe cooled passive residual heat removal system of molten salt reactor

Abstract

As one of the representatives of fourth generation nuclear reactors, molten salt reactor technology has become the research focus worldwide. Higher passive safety requirements have been put forward for the nuclear reactor systems. In this paper, a conceptual design of a passive residual heat removal system for the molten salt reactor is presented and the mathematical and physical models are established. Based on FORTRAN programming language, the passive residual heat removal system analysis code is developed and validated. The code is used to analyze the safety of molten salt reactor under accident conditions, including unprotected reactivity introduction accident, unprotected overcooling, unprotected loss of flow, opening failure of the frozen valve and the startup accident of partial heat pipes. The results show that the passive residual heat removal system of molten salt reactor can discharge fuel salt decay heat effectively within 200 hours and ensure that the molten salt reactor to operate safely under all accident conditions. Above all, the system has good passive safety performance. The proposed passive residual heat removal system can satisfy the safety requirement of molten salt reactor. The feasibility of the conceptual design of the heat pipe cooled passive residual heat removal system is theoretically verified.