Neutronics/Thermal-hydraulics Coupling Analysis for the Liquid-Fuel MOSART Concept

Abstract Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) especially that with liquid-fuels, as a candidate of the Gen-IV nuclear reactors attracts word-wide attention due to its top ranked advantage in fuel cycle. One significant problem for such kind of reactor is the mathematic modeling and solving of the neutronics/thermal-hydraulics coupling due to the liquid-fuel flow effects. The fundamental models and numerical method are established in this paper, based on which a home-made software COUPLE is coded to perform the characteristics analysis for liquid-fuel MSRs. The software is applied to the MOSART (MOlten Salt Actinide Recycler and Transmuter) conceptual analysis, and the space distributions of the neutron fluxes and the delayed neutron precursors, and the effects of the main operation parameters on the effective multiplication factor are obtained. The results indicate that the liquid-fuel flow influences the delayed neutron precursors significantly, while affects the neutron fluxes slightly, and the MOSART shows good inherent safety characteristics.