TY - JOUR
T1 - Modeling and simulation functional needs for molten salt reactor licensing
AU - Betzler, Benjamin R.
AU - Heidet, Florent
AU - Feng, Bo
AU - Rabiti, Cristian
AU - Sofu, Tanju
AU - Brown, Nicholas R.
N1 - Funding Information:
Notice: This manuscript has been co-authored by UT-Battelle, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725, U Chicago Argonne, LLC, under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357, and Battelle Energy Alliance, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC07-05ID1451 with the US Department of Energy (DOE). The US government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the US government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for US government purposes. DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan ( http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan ).
Funding Information:
This effort was funded by the Molten Salt Reactor Campaign of the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy Nuclear Technology Research and Development Program. The Molten Salt Reactor Campaign is led by Dr. A. L. Qualls of Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Elsevier B.V.
Copyright:
Copyright 2019 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2019/12/15
Y1 - 2019/12/15
N2 - The modeling and simulation functional needs to license and design molten salt reactor concepts were assessed and an evaluation methodology was developed using a licensing-focused approach considering the modeling and simulation components that contribute to a molten salt reactor safety analysis report. These functional needs were prioritized by identifying the relationships between functional needs and using a quantitative weighting method to identify the most critical components to build a licensing case. This novel weighting method provided a list of functional needs prioritized relative to key advanced reactor licensing outcomes. In addition, functional need inputs were ranked to reveal those that feed the most modeling and simulation components. The findings from this prioritization effort were used to inform the modeling and simulation goals of the US Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy (DOE-NE) Molten Salt Reactor campaign. Modeling and simulation needs were grouped into three main categories: (1) source term definition, material accountancy, and radiological consequences, (2) safety analysis, and (3) steady-state neutronics and thermal hydraulics. Five near-term goals were identified among these focus areas that add value: (1) deploying a systems and safeguards analysis computational tool, (2) defining source terms for molten salt reactor analysis and interfacing with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission on accident progression analysis, (3) developing point designs for liquid-fueled thermal-spectrum and fast-spectrum molten salt reactors, (4) building safety analysis specifications and reference solutions for Molten Salt Reactor Experiment transients, and (5) interfacing with the thermophysical and thermodynamic salt chemistry databases.
AB - The modeling and simulation functional needs to license and design molten salt reactor concepts were assessed and an evaluation methodology was developed using a licensing-focused approach considering the modeling and simulation components that contribute to a molten salt reactor safety analysis report. These functional needs were prioritized by identifying the relationships between functional needs and using a quantitative weighting method to identify the most critical components to build a licensing case. This novel weighting method provided a list of functional needs prioritized relative to key advanced reactor licensing outcomes. In addition, functional need inputs were ranked to reveal those that feed the most modeling and simulation components. The findings from this prioritization effort were used to inform the modeling and simulation goals of the US Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy (DOE-NE) Molten Salt Reactor campaign. Modeling and simulation needs were grouped into three main categories: (1) source term definition, material accountancy, and radiological consequences, (2) safety analysis, and (3) steady-state neutronics and thermal hydraulics. Five near-term goals were identified among these focus areas that add value: (1) deploying a systems and safeguards analysis computational tool, (2) defining source terms for molten salt reactor analysis and interfacing with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission on accident progression analysis, (3) developing point designs for liquid-fueled thermal-spectrum and fast-spectrum molten salt reactors, (4) building safety analysis specifications and reference solutions for Molten Salt Reactor Experiment transients, and (5) interfacing with the thermophysical and thermodynamic salt chemistry databases.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.nucengdes.2019.110308
DO - 10.1016/j.nucengdes.2019.110308
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85071296098
VL - 355
JO - Nuclear Engineering and Design
JF - Nuclear Engineering and Design
SN - 0029-5493
M1 - 110308
ER -