A Draft Design of a Zero-Power Experiment for Molten Salt Fast Reactor Studies

Bruno Merk (), Omid Noori-kalkhoran, Lakshay Jain, Daliya Aflyatunova, Andrew Jones, Lewis Powell, Anna Detkina, Michael Drury, Dzianis Litskevich, Marco Viebach and Carsten Lange
Additional contact information
Bruno Merk: School of Engineering, The University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3GH, UK
Omid Noori-kalkhoran: School of Engineering, The University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3GH, UK
Lakshay Jain: School of Engineering, The University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3GH, UK
Daliya Aflyatunova: School of Physical Sciences, The University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 7ZE, UK
Andrew Jones: School of Engineering, The University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3GH, UK
Lewis Powell: School of Engineering, The University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3GH, UK
Anna Detkina: School of Engineering, The University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3GH, UK
Michael Drury: UK Atomics, Gloucester GL2 8JJ, UK
Dzianis Litskevich: School of Engineering, The University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3GH, UK
Marco Viebach: Institute of Power Engineering and Environmental Technology, TU Dresden, 01062 Dresden, Germany
Carsten Lange: Institute of Power Engineering and Environmental Technology, TU Dresden, 01062 Dresden, Germany

Energies, 2024, vol. 17, issue 11, 1-15

Abstract: The UK government and many international experts have pointed out that nuclear energy has an important role to play in the transition towards a decarbonised energy system since it is the only freely manageable very low-carbon energy technology with 24/7 availability to complement renewables. Besides current investments in light water reactor technologies, we need innovation for improved fuel usage and reduced waste creation, like that offered by iMAGINE, for the required broad success of nuclear technologies. To allow for quick progress in innovative technologies like iMAGINE and their regulation, a timely investment into urgently needed experimental infrastructure and expertise development will be required to assure the availability of capacities and capabilities. The initial steps to start the development of such a new reactor physics experimental facility to investigate molten salt fast reactor technology are discussed, and a stepwise approach for the development of the experimental facility is described. The down selection for the choice for a diverse control and shutdown system is described through manipulating the reflector (control) and splitting the core (shutdown). The developed innovative core design of having the two core parts in two different rooms opens completely new opportunities and will allow for the manifestation of the request for separated operational and experimental crews, as nowadays requested by regulators into the built environment. The proposed physical separation of safety-relevant operational systems from the experimental room should on the one hand help to ease the access to the facility for visiting experimental specialists. On the other hand, the location of all safety-relevant systems in a now separated access-controlled area for the operational team will limit the risk of misuse through third party access. The planned experimental programme is described with the major steps as follows: core criticality experiments, followed by experiments to determine the neutron flux, neutron spectrum and power distribution as well as experiments to understand the effect of changes in reactivity and flux as a function of salt density, temperature and composition change.

Keywords: nuclear; nuclear reactors; experiments; reactor experiments; zero-power experiments; innovative reactors (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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