Neutronic design of a Liquid Salt-cooled Pebble Bed Reactor (LSPBR)

Conference · Sat Jul 01 00:00:00 EDT 2006

OSTI ID:22039500

De Zwaan, S J; Boer, B; Lathouwers, D; Kloosterman, J L ^[1]

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1. Delft Univ. of Technology (TUD), Mekelweg 15, 2629 JB Delft (Netherlands)

A renewed interest has been raised for liquid salt cooled nuclear reactors. The excellent heat transfer properties of liquid salt coolants provide several benefits, like lower fuel temperatures, higher coolant outlet temperatures, increased core power density and better decay heat removal. In order to benefit from the online refueling capability of a pebble bed reactor, the Liquid Salt Pebble Bed Reactor (LSPBR) is proposed. This is a high temperature pebble-bed reactor with a fuel design similar to existing HTRs, but using a liquid salt as a coolant. In this paper, the selection criteria for the liquid salt coolant are described. Based on its neutronic properties, LiF-BeF{sub 2} (FLIBE) was selected for the LSPBR. Two designs of the LSPBR were considered: a cylindrical core and an annular core with a graphite inner reflector. Coupled neutronic-thermal hydraulic calculations were performed to obtain the steady state power distribution and the corresponding fuel temperatures. Finally, calculations were performed to investigate the decay heat removal capability in a protected loss-of-forced cooling accident. The maximum allowable power that can be produced with the LSPBR is hereby determined. (authors)

• Research Organization: American Nuclear Society, 555 North Kensington Avenue, La Grange Park, IL 60526 (United States)
• OSTI ID: 22039500
• Resource Relation: Conference: PHYSOR-2006: American Nuclear Society's Topical Meeting on Reactor Physics - Advances in Nuclear Analysis and Simulation, Vancouver, BC (Canada), 10-14 Sep 2006; Other Information: Country of input: France; 8 refs.
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
AFTER-HEAT REMOVAL
BERYLLIUM FLUORIDES
CYLINDRICAL CONFIGURATION
DESIGN
FLIBE
FORCED CONVECTION
GRAPHITE
HEAT TRANSFER
LITHIUM FLUORIDES
LOSS OF COOLANT
MOLTEN SALT COOLED REACTORS
PEBBLE BED REACTORS
POWER DENSITY
POWER DISTRIBUTION
REACTOR CORES
STEADY-STATE CONDITIONS
TEMPERATURE RANGE 0400-1000 K
THERMAL HYDRAULICS
THERMODYNAMIC PROPERTIES