Noble Gas Transport in the MSRE

Technical Report · Tue Aug 01 04:00:00 EDT 2023

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/2481213· OSTI ID:2481213

Lee, Kyoung O. ^[1]; Kropaczek, Dave ^[1]; Graham, Aaron M. ^[1]

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1. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

This study explores the relationship between the physicochemical parameter known as Henry’s gas constant and gas transport across a two-layer film interface. The investigation utilized the Gibbs free energy, incorporating surface and volume terms to elucidate trends in enthalpy and entropy. Notably, our findings align with experimental data and offer predictive insights into the Henry’s gas constants for helium and krypton, which hold significance for future experiments and theoretical developments. Furthermore, this study enhances the Gibbs free energy theory pertaining to the liquid–gas interface. It underscores the substantial contribution of noble gases in this region to volumetric energy as temperature increases. Additionally, we employed Monte Carlo simulations to analyze the effective thermal neutron multiplication factor, denoted as k_eff. Our analysis reveals a linear correlation between graphite density and uniform density as a function of temperature. For the 1D Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) system, we employed the Mole code to conduct heat and mass transfer calculations. These computations enable us to ascertain the distribution of fuel temperature based on coefficients and thermal properties. We also studied delayed neutron precursors during fuel cycling, taking into account the drift of cycling fuel through Mole–Griffin coupling. Our model represents k_eff and β_eff across various volume flow rates and salinity compositions. Finally, this study leveraged xenon-135 for continuous on-line monitoring of fuel salts to investigate the impact of steady-state xenon-135 on the MSRE and to better understand its distribution. These efforts build upon previous research related to removal processes.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE), Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS)
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 2481213
• Report Number(s): ORNL/TM--2023/3122-Rev.1
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS
73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS