Research

Chemical Technologies

Organization of a workshop with industry and national lab leaders on sensor needs for molten salt reactors.
Development and demonstration of chemical and thermal sensors employing optical and electrochemical techniques.
Exploration of several manufacturing methods and materials for probe miniaturization for use in-reactor and in-loop (ex-core) configurations.
Building and testing of a sensor prototype.

Measurement of the 35cl(n,p) cross section to correct a deficiency in evaluated nuclear data files in the fast spectrum range.
Compilation of measurements and results in the EXFOR (experimental nuclear reactor) database.

Corrosion studies of un-irradiated and irradiated alloys in molten salts.
Corrosion cracking testing of alloys with in-situ proton irradiation; assessment of swelling resistance.
Alloys optimization (assessment of corrosion resistance for plasma-nitrided alloys).
Molten salt waste stream characterization (fission product immobilization), evaluation of calcination and mineralization product behavior.

Development of a generalized approach to simulate delayed neutron precursors transport in molten salt reactors (MSR).
Modeling of salt expansion and bubble formation effects and assessment of their impact on reactivity-initiated accidents for molten salt reactors.
Evaluation of the impact of radiative heat transfer on heat transfer in molten salt reactors.
Development and assessment of reduced-order models for molten salt reactor applications.
Development of a framework for MSR system analysis and optimization. Evaluation of system designs using the developed framework.

Development of a heat exchanger design optimization tool.
Verification and validation of RANS (Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes) models for molten salt reactor flows.
Feasibility study for the use of heat pipes in molten salt reactor applications.