Modeling and simulation of online reprocessing in the thorium-fueled molten salt breeder reactor

Andrei Rykhlevskii; Jin Whan Bae; Kathryn D. Huff

doi:10.1016/j.anucene.2019.01.030

Modeling and simulation of online reprocessing in the thorium-fueled molten salt breeder reactor

Andrei Rykhlevskii, Jin Whan Bae, Kathryn D. Huff

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

44 Scopus citations

Abstract

In the search for new ways to generate carbon-free, reliable base-load power, interest in advanced nuclear energy technologies, particularly Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs), has resurged with multiple new companies pursuing MSR commercialization. To further develop these MSR concepts, researchers need simulation tools for analyzing liquid-fueled MSR depletion and fuel processing. However, most contemporary nuclear reactor physics software is unable to perform high-fidelity full-core depletion calculations for a reactor design with online reprocessing. This paper introduces a Python package, SaltProc, which couples with the Monte Carlo code, SERPENT2 to simulate MSR online reprocessing by modeling the changing isotopic composition of MSR fuel salt. This work demonstrates SaltProc capabilities for a full-core, high-fidelity model of the commercial Molten Salt Breeder Reactor (MSBR) concept and verifies these results to results in the literature from independent, lower-fidelity analyses.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	366-379
Number of pages	14
Journal	Annals of Nuclear Energy
Volume	128
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anucene.2019.01.030
State	Published - Jun 2019
Externally published	Yes

Funding

This research is part of the Blue Waters sustained-petascale computing project, which is supported by the National Science Foundation (awards OCI-0725070 and ACI-1238993) and the state of Illinois. Blue Waters is a joint effort of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and its National Center for Supercomputing Applications This research is part of the Blue Waters sustained-petascale computing project, which is supported by the National Science Foundation (awards OCI-0725070 and ACI-1238993) and the state of Illinois. Blue Waters is a joint effort of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and its National Center for Supercomputing Applications The authors contributed to this work as described below. Andrei Rykhlevskii conceived and designed the simulations, wrote the paper, prepared figures and/or tables, performed the computation work, contributed to the software product, and reviewed drafts of the paper. Jin Whan Bae conceived and designed the simulations, wrote the paper, contributed to the software product, and reviewed drafts of the paper. Andrei Rykhlevskii is supported by DOE ARPA-E MEITNER program award 1798-1576. Jin Whan Bae is supported by funding received from the DOE Nuclear Energy University Program (Project 16-10512) ‘Demand-Driven Cycamore Archetypes’. Kathryn D. Huff directed and supervised the work, conceived and designed the simulations, contributed to the software product, and reviewed drafts of the paper. Prof. Huff is supported by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Faculty Development Program, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, the NNSA Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation R&D through the Consortium for Verfication Technologies and the Consortium for Nonproliferation Enabling Capabilities, the International Institute for Carbon Neutral Energy Research (WPI-I2CNER), sponsored by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, and DOE ARPA-E MEITNER program award 1798-1576.

Funders	Funder number
DOE ARPA-E MEITNER	1798-1576
International Institute for Carbon Neutral Energy Research	WPI-I2CNER
National Science Foundation	OCI-0725070, ACI-1238993
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation
Nuclear Energy University Program	16-10512
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology
National Science Foundation

Keywords

Depletion
Molten salt breeder reactor
Molten salt reactor
Nuclear fuel cycle
Online reprocessing
Python
Salt treatment

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10.1016/j.anucene.2019.01.030

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title = "Modeling and simulation of online reprocessing in the thorium-fueled molten salt breeder reactor",

abstract = "In the search for new ways to generate carbon-free, reliable base-load power, interest in advanced nuclear energy technologies, particularly Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs), has resurged with multiple new companies pursuing MSR commercialization. To further develop these MSR concepts, researchers need simulation tools for analyzing liquid-fueled MSR depletion and fuel processing. However, most contemporary nuclear reactor physics software is unable to perform high-fidelity full-core depletion calculations for a reactor design with online reprocessing. This paper introduces a Python package, SaltProc, which couples with the Monte Carlo code, SERPENT2 to simulate MSR online reprocessing by modeling the changing isotopic composition of MSR fuel salt. This work demonstrates SaltProc capabilities for a full-core, high-fidelity model of the commercial Molten Salt Breeder Reactor (MSBR) concept and verifies these results to results in the literature from independent, lower-fidelity analyses.",

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ER -

Modeling and simulation of online reprocessing in the thorium-fueled molten salt breeder reactor

Abstract

Funding

Keywords

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