Safety Enhancement in the Molten Salt Fast Reactor (MSFR)

MOHAMED, MONTASER THARWAT ALAAELDIN; MOUSTAFA, Ramadan Youssef Sakr; Mohamed, Nader Mahmoud Abdelhalim; Soliman, Abdelfattah Youssef  Abdelfattah; Aldosouky, Mamdouh Wafaa Shawky

doi:10.21608/erjsh.2023.198333.1153

Safety Enhancement in the Molten Salt Fast Reactor (MSFR)

Document Type : Research articles

Authors

¹ Department of Reactors, Egyptian Atomic Energy Authority. Egypt.

² Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering at Shoubra, Benha University, Egypt.

³ Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering, Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

⁴ Egyptian Nuclear and Radiological Regulatory Authority, Egypt.

10.21608/erjsh.2023.198333.1153

Abstract

This study presents a new modification for the cooling circuit design of the Molten Salt Fast Reactor MSFR to solve the problem of high temperatures in the hot spots regions that affect the reactor safety. These high temperature regions appear as a result of the salt recirculation of the liquid fuel. This problem causes a decrease in the delayed neutron fraction value βeff.. This decrease in βeff. reduces the safety of the reactor because it shifts it more close to the prompt critical state. The new modification depends on distributing the flow between the side and the centre by adding a coolant circuit passes through the core centre from the bottom to the top. At the end of this study we see that this new design moderated the hot spots and reduced the maximum temperature to about 1120 k. This value is greater than the core outlet temperature by about 77 k and smaller than the maximum temperature of the benchmark design by about 160 k. The design also reduced the salt velocity from the benchmark value 3.9 m/s to the value 2.38 m/s.

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