• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.3
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• pp.817-825
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• 2022

A recent benchmarking effort, under the auspices of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), has been made to evaluate the current state of modeling and simulation tools available to model fluoride salt-cooled high temperature reactors (FHRs). The FHR benchmarking effort considered in this work consists of several cases evaluating the neutronic parameters of a 2D prismatic FHR fuel assembly model using the participants' choice of simulation tools. Benchmark participants blindly submitted results for comparison with overall good agreement, except for some which significantly differed on cases utilizing a molybdenum-bearing control rod. Participants utilizing more recently updated explicit isotopic cross sections had consistent results, whereas those using elemental molybdenum cross sections observed reactivity differences on the order of thousands of pcm relative to their peers. Through a series of supporting tests, the authors attribute the differences as being nuclear data driven from using older legacy elemental molybdenum cross sections. Quantitative analysis is conducted on the control rod to identify spectral, reaction rate, and cross section phenomena responsible for the observed differences. Results confirm the observed differences are attributable to the use of elemental cross sections which overestimate the reaction rates in strong resonance channels.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.3
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• pp.1091-1099
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• 2024

Fluoride-salt-cooled High-temperature Reactor (FHR) is a promising nuclear reactor technology. Among many challenges presented by the molten fluoride salts is the corrosion of salt-facing structural components. Higher moisture contents, in the FLiNaK (LiF-NaF-KF, 46.5-11.5-42 mol%) salt, aggravate intergranular corrosion and pitting for the given alloys. Therefore, several thermal dehydration tests of FLiNaK salt were performed with a batch size suitable for thermal-hydraulic experiments. Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA) was performed for the three constituent fluoride salts individually. Preliminary thermal dehydration plans were then proposed for NaF and KF salts based on the TGA curves. However, the dehydration process may not be required for LiF since its low mass loss (<1.3 wt%). To evaluate the performance of these thermal dehydration plans, a batch-scale salt dehydration test facility was designed and constructed. The preliminary thermal dehydration plans were tested by varying the heating rates, target temperature, and holding time. The sample mass loss data showed that the high temperatures (>500 ℃) were necessary to remove a significant amount of moisture (>1 wt%) from NaF salt, while relatively low temperatures (around 300 ℃) with a long holding time (>10 h) were sufficient to remove most of the moisture from KF salt.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.12
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• pp.3879-3891
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• 2021

A heat pipe residual heat removal system is proposed to be incorporated into the reactor driven subcritical (RDS) facility, which has been proposed by MIT Nuclear Reactor Laboratory for testing and demonstrating the Fluoride-salt-cooled High-temperature Reactor (FHR). It aims to reduce the risk of the system operation after the shutdown of the facility. One of the main components of the system is an air-cooled heat pipe heat exchanger. The alkali-metal high-temperature heat pipe was designed to meet the operation temperature and residual heat removal requirement of the facility. The heat pipe model developed in the previous work was adopted to simulate the designed heat pipe and assess the heat transport capability. 3D numerical simulation of the subcritical facility active zone was performed by the commercial CFD software STAR CCM + to investigate the operation characteristics of this proposed system. The thermal resistance network of the heat pipe was built and incorporated into the CFD model. The nominal condition, partial loss of air flow accident and partial heat pipe failure accident were simulated and analyzed. The results show that the residual heat removal system can provide sufficient cooling of the subcritical facility with a remarkable safety margin. The heat pipe can work under the recommended operation temperature range and the heat flux is below all thermal limits. The facility peak temperature is also lower than the safety limits.