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Title: Extension of the DIF3D Code for Molten Salt Reactor Analysis

Journal Article · · Transactions of the American Nuclear Society
OSTI ID:23050353
 [1];  [1];  [1]
  1. School of Nuclear Engineering, Purdue University, 400 Central Dr., West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA (United States)

The molten salt reactor (MSR) with the fuel dissolved into the liquid salt has been selected as one of the six Generation-IV reactors due to its excellent characteristics in the aspects of sustainability, economy, passive safety, and resource utilization. In a MSR, the fuel salt is circulated throughout the whole system and thus some of delayed neutron precursors generated in the core decay in position of low importance or even out of the core. As a result, the multiplication factor (k-eff) of MSR is smaller than that of a reactor of stationary fuel when all the other conditions are same. Therefore, the neutronics code developed for stationary fuel cannot be applied directly to MSR analysis. In this paper, we describe the extension and application of the DIF3D code to MSR neutronics analysis. The DIF3D code system is a multi-group steady-state neutron diffusion and transport theory solver. It provides three flux solution options: finite-difference diffusion theory, nodal diffusion theory, and variational nodal transport theory methods. Eigenvalue, adjoint, fixed source and criticality (concentration) search problems are permitted. The DIF3D code has recently been modified to model the flowing fuel. To verify the new capability of DIF3D, the MSFR [4] core was analyzed with a wide range of velocity field of fuel salt and time spent outside of the core.

OSTI ID:
23050353
Journal Information:
Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, Vol. 116; Conference: 2017 Annual Meeting of the American Nuclear Society, San Francisco, CA (United States), 11-15 Jun 2017; Other Information: Country of input: France; 5 refs.; available from American Nuclear Society - ANS, 555 North Kensington Avenue, La Grange Park, IL 60526 (US); ISSN 0003-018X
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English