Conceptual Design of a Breed & Burn Molten Salt Reactor
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Conceptual design of a breed & burn molten salt reactor Alisha Ana Kasam Supervisor: Dr Eugene Shwageraus Department of Engineering University of Cambridge This dissertation is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Churchill College November 2018 Declaration This dissertation is the result of my own work and includes nothing which is the outcome of work done in collaboration except as specified in the text. It is not substantially the sameas any that I have submitted, or, is being concurrently submitted for a degree or diploma or other qualification at the University of Cambridge or any other University or similar institution. I further state that no substantial part of my dissertation has already been submitted, or, is being concurrently submitted for any such degree, diploma or other qualification at the University of Cambridge or any other University or similar institution. This dissertation contains fewer than 65,000 words including appendices, bibliography, footnotes, tables and equations and has fewer than 150 figures. Alisha Ana Kasam November 2018 Acknowledgements I am extremely grateful to my supervisor, Dr Eugene Shwageraus, who has been an incredible source of knowledge, enthusiasm, and patient guidance. Many thanks also to Professor Jeong Ik Lee of KAIST, who became like a co-supervisor to me during his time in Cambridge. He has been very generous with his time and expertise, and many sections of this thesis resulted from long and fruitful conversations with him. Mr Tony Roulstone, Professor Epominondas Mastorakos, and Professor Stewart Cant have provided invaluable advice, teaching, and support during my graduate studies at Cambridge. I gratefully acknowledge Dr Ian Scott of Moltex Energy for his support of my research topic and advice on molten salt reactor chemistry. I am also thankful to Dr Andrea Giusti and Xinyu Zhao for their help with OpenFOAM. I thank Professor Dan Kotlyar, now of Georgia Tech, and Dr Ben Lindley of Wood Group for their friendship and advice on many topics. Each of my colleagues in BS3-05 has been a source of help or camaraderie during my PhD, and the kind and wonderful Joanne Boyle is the glue holding all of us together. Looking back to my undergraduate years at Georgia Tech, I cannot adequately express my thanks to Professor Chris Paredis and Dr Karen Adams for teaching me the confidence and skills that carried me all the way to Cambridge and eventually to the end of a PhD. Thank you to my family for encouraging, challenging, and supporting me throughout my life and education. Special thanks also to my in-laws for being on my team from day one and welcoming me into their lovely family. My amazing husband and best friend, Kent, deserves an award for cheerfully supporting me throughout the many highs and lows of my PhD. Above all, I thank him for always seeing the best in me. I gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Winston Churchill Foundation ofthe United States, Cambridge International Trust, and Churchill Pochobradsky Scholarship. Abstract A breed-and-burn molten salt reactor (BBMSR) concept is proposed to address the Generation IV fuel cycle sustainability objective in a once-through cycle with low enrichment and no reprocessing. The BBMSR uses separate fuel and coolant molten salts, with the fuel contained in assemblies of individual tubes that can be shuffled and reclad periodically to enable high burnup. In this dual-salt configuration, the BBMSR may overcome several limitations of previous breed-and-burn (B&B) designs to achieve high uranium utilisation with a simple, passively safe design. A central challenge in design of the BBMSR fuel is balancing the neutronic requirement of large fuel volume fraction for B&B mode with the thermal–hydraulic requirements for safe and economically competitive reactor operation. Natural convection of liquid fuel within the tubes aids heat transfer to the coolant, and a systematic approach is developed to efficiently model this complex effect. Computational fluid dynamics modelling is performed to characterise the unique physics of the system and produce a new heat transfer correlation, which is used alongside established correlations in a numerical model. A design framework is built around this numerical model to iteratively search for the limiting power density of a given fuel and channel geometry, applying several defined temperature and operational constraints. It is found that the trade-offs between power density, core pressure drop, and pumping power are lessened by directing the flow of coolant downwards through the channel. Fuel configurations that satisfy both neutronic and thermal–hydraulic objectives are identified for natural, 5% enriched, and 20% enriched uranium feed fuel. B&B operationis achievable in the natural and 5% enriched versions, with power densities of 73 W/cm3 and 86 3 W/cm , and theoretical uranium utilisations of 300 MWd=kgUNAT and 25.5 MWd=kgUNAT, respectively. Using 20% enriched feed fuel relaxes neutronic constraints so a wider range of fuel configurations can be considered, but there is a strong inverse correlation between power density and uranium utilisation. The fuel design study demonstrates the flexibility of the BBMSR concept to operate along a spectrum of modes ranging from high fuel utilisation at moderate power density using natural uranium feed fuel, to high power density and moderate utilisation using 20% uranium enrichment. Table of contents List of figures xiii List of tables xv Nomenclature xvii 1 Introduction1 1.1 Fast Reactors.................................2 1.2 Breed-and-burn . .4 1.3 Molten Salt Reactors.............................7 1.3.1 Thorium . .9 1.3.2 Early MSR development . .9 1.3.3 Molten Salt Fast Reactor . 10 1.3.4 Fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactor . 11 1.3.5 Flexible conversion ratio salt-cooled reactor . 12 1.3.6 Moltex Stable Salt Reactor . 13 1.4 Thesis Objectives . 15 1.5 Thesis Organisation . 16 2 Concept Description and Feasibility 19 2.1 Conceptual Description of the BBMSR . 19 2.2 Neutronic Feasibility Assessment . 20 2.2.1 Serpent calculation . 21 2.2.2 Initial configuration . 21 2.2.3 Comparison with B&B SFR . 24 2.2.4 Neutron absorption analysis . 24 2.2.5 Spectrum hardening . 27 2.2.6 Thorium . 29 x Table of contents 2.2.7 Low-enriched uranium . 29 2.3 Materials Feasibility Discussion . 32 2.3.1 Ternary chloride coolant salt . 32 2.3.2 Uranium chloride fuel salt . 33 2.3.3 Candidate cladding materials . 37 3 Fuel Convection Analysis 39 3.1 Analytical Convection Model . 39 3.2 Concentric Fuel Concept . 44 3.2.1 Comparison of convection heat transfer correlations . 45 3.2.2 Developing a new heat transfer correlation . 47 3.3 CFD Study . 48 3.3.1 Boundary conditions . 48 3.3.2 Physical properties . 48 3.3.3 Mesh sensitivity & model verification . 50 3.3.4 CFD results . 50 3.4 Conclusions . 55 4 Thermal–Hydraulic Fuel Modelling 57 4.1 Finite-Difference Model for Concentric Fuel . 57 4.1.1 Energy balance . 57 4.1.2 Momentum balance . 60 4.1.3 Iterative numerical schemes . 61 4.1.4 FDM results and parametric study . 61 4.1.5 Concentric fuel flow area parametric study . 63 4.2 Thermal–Hydraulic Design Search Program . 65 4.2.1 Inputs and constraints . 65 4.2.2 Algorithm description . 65 4.3 Fuel Design Trade-Off Analysis . 66 4.3.1 Key performance parameters . 67 4.3.2 Flexible constraints . 69 4.3.3 Coolant direction study . 71 4.4 Discussion and Conclusions . 72 5 Neutronic & Thermal–Hydraulic Fuel Design 75 5.1 Methodology . 75 Table of contents xi 5.1.1 3D pin cell model . 75 5.1.2 Neutron balance analysis . 76 5.1.3 Neutron reflectors . 77 5.1.4 Thermal–hydraulic analysis . 78 5.1.5 Code comparison: deterministic versus Monte Carlo . 79 5.2 Design with Natural Uranium . 84 5.2.1 Effect of cladding material . 84 5.2.2 Effect of fuel diameter . 85 5.2.3 Effect of fuel length . 86 5.2.4 Effect of reflector material . 86 5.2.5 Effect of coolant plenum length . 88 5.3 Design with 5% Enriched Uranium . 88 5.4 Design with 20% Enriched Uranium . 89 5.5 Uranium Utilisation Analysis . 92 5.6 Summary of BBMSR Fuel Cycle Options.................. 95 5.7 Conclusions . 96 6 Summary and Conclusions 99 6.1 Concept Description . 100 6.1.1 Comparison of dual-salt and pool-type MSRs............ 100 6.1.2 Neutronic feasibility . 101 6.2 Fuel Convection Analysis . 101 6.3 Thermal–Hydraulic Fuel Modelling . 102 6.4 Neutronic & Thermal–Hydraulic Fuel Design . 103 6.4.1 Natural uranium........................... 103 6.4.2 5% enriched uranium......................... 103 6.4.3 20% enriched uranium........................ 104 6.5 Recommendations for Future Work . 104 6.5.1 Improved modelling methods . 104 6.5.2 Full-core modelling . 105 6.5.3 Alternative design options . 105 6.5.4 Materials considerations . 106 References 107 Appendix A OpenFOAM input 113 xii Table of contents Appendix B Coolant channel equations 119 List of figures 1.1 Reproduction factor h for fissile isotopes . .3 1.2 Molten salt . .8 1.3 MSFR design . 11 1.4 TRISO fuel pebble . 12 1.5 Moltex SSR with naturally convecting fuel . 14 2.1 Modelled unit cell . 21 2.2 Burnup versus k¥, SSR burner and initial BBMSR . 22 2.3 Burnup versus k¥, varying fuel tube diameter . 23 2.4 Burnup versus k¥, varying UCl3 mole% . 23 2.5 Comparison of BBSFR and BBMSR . 25 2.6 Comparison of BBMSR with natural and low-capture materials . 28 2.7 Comparison of fluoride-, chloride-, and sodium-cooled B&B fuels . 29 2.8 Burnup versus k¥ for UCl3- and ThCl4-fuelled BBMSR .