Development of a MCNP5 and ORIGEN2 based burnup code for molten salt reactor

The Molten Salt Reactor(MSR) is one of the six advanced reactor nuclear energy systems for further research and development selected by Generation IV International Forum(GIF),which is distinguished by its core in which the fuel is dissolved in molten fluoride salt.Because fuel flow in the primary loop,the depletion of MSR is different from that of solid-fuel reactors.In this paper,an MCNP5 and ORIGEN2 Coupled Burnup(MOCBurn) code for MSR is developed under the MATLAB platform.Some new methods and novel arrangements are used to make it suitable for fuel flow in the MSR.To consider the fuel convection and diffusion in the primary loop of MSR,fuel mixing calculation is carried out after each burnup time step.Modeling function for geometry with repeat structures is implicated for reactor analysis with complex structures.Calculation for a high-burnup reactor pin cell benchmark is performed using the MOCBurn code.Results of depletion study show that the MOCBurn code is suitable for the traditional solid-fuel reactors.A preliminary study of the fuel mixture effect in MSR is also carried out.

Application of material-mesh algebraic collapsing acceleration technique in method of characteristics——based neutron transport code

The algebraic collapsing acceleration(ACA)technique maximizes the use of geometric flexibility of the method of characteristics(MOC).The spatial grids for loworder ACA are the same as the high-order transport,which makes the numerical solution of ACA equations costly,especially for large-size problems.To speed-up the MOC transport iterations effectively for general geometry,a coarse-mesh ACA method that involves selectively merging fine-mesh cells with identical materials,called material-mesh ACA(MMACA),is presented.The energy group batching(EGB)strategy in the tracing process is proposed to increase the parallel efficiency for microscopic crosssection problems.Microscopic and macroscopic crosssection benchmark problems are used to validate and analyse the accuracy and efficiency of the MMACA method.The maximum errors in the multiplication factor and pin power distributions are from the VERA-4 B-2 D case with silver-indium-cadmium(AIC)control rods inserted and are 104 pcm and 1.97%,respectively.Compared with the single-thread ACA solution,the maximum speed-up ratio reached 25 on 12 CPU cores for microscopic cross-section VERA-4-2 D problem.For the C5 G7-2 D and LRA-2 D benchmarks,the MMACA method can reduce the computation time by approximately one half.The present work proposes the MMACA method and demonstrates its ability to effectively accelerate MOC transport iterations.

Flow field effect of delayed neutron precursors in liquid-fueled molten salt reactors

In molten salt reactors(MSRs),the liquid fuel salt circulates through the primary loop and a part of the delayed neutron precursors(DNPs)decays outside the reactor core.To model and analyze the flow field effect of DNPs in channel-type liquid-fueled MSRs,a three-dimensional space-time dynamics code,named ThorCORE3D,that couples neutronics,core thermalhydraulics,and a molten salt loop system was developed and validated with the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment(MSRE)benchmarks.The effects of external loop recirculation time,fuel flow rate,and core flow field distribution on the delayed neutron fraction loss of MSRE at steadystate were modeled and simulated using the ThorCORE3D code.Then,the flow field effect of the DNPs on the system responses of the MSRE in the reactivity insertion transient under different initial conditions was analyzed systematically for the channel-type liquid-fueled MSRs.The results indicate that the flow field condition has a significant effect on the steady-state delayed neutron fractions and will further affect the transient power and temperature responses of the reactor system.The analysis results for the effect of the DNP flow field can provide important references for the design optimization and safety analysis of liquid-fueled MSRs.

Feasibility of an innovative long-life molten chloride-cooled reactor

Molten salt-cooled reactor is one of the six GenIV reactors with promising characteristics including safety,reliability,proliferation resistance,physical protection,economics,and sustainability.In this paper,a small innovative molten chloride-cooled fast reactor(MCCFR)with 30-year core and a target 120-MWt thermal power was presented.For its feasible study,neutronics,thermal-hydraulics,and radiation damage analysis were performed.The key design properties including kinetics parameters,reactivity swing,reactivity feedback coefficients,maximum accumulated displacement per atom(DPA)of reactor pressure vessel(RPV)and fuel cladding,and maximum coolant,cladding,and fuel temperatures were evaluated.The results showed the MCCFR could operate without refueling for 30 years with overall negative reactivity feedback coefficients up the end of its life.During its 30-year life,the excess reactivity was well managed by constantly pulling out the control rods.The maximum accumulated DPA on RPV and fuel cladding were 8.92 dpa and 197.03 dpa,respectively,which are both below the design limits.Similarly,the maximum coolant,cladding and fuel center temperatures were all below the design limits during its entire lifetime.According to these results,the MCCFR core design with long life is feasible.