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Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Design of a 2400MW liquid-salt cooled flexible conversion ratio reactor

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

A 2400MWth liquid-salt cooled flexible conversion ratio reactor was designed, utilizing the ternary chloride salt NaCl-KCl-MgCI2 (30%-20%-50%) as coolant. The reference design uses a wire-wrapped, hex lattice core, and is able to achieve a core power density of 130 kW/1 with a core pressure drop of 700kPa and a maximum cladding temperature under 650'C. Four kidney- shaped conventional tube-in-shell heat exchangers are used to connect the primary system to a 5450C supercritical CO2 power conversion system. The core, intermediate heat exchangers, and reactor coolant pumps fit in a vessel approximately 10 meters in diameter and less than 20 meters high. Lithium expansion modules (LEMs) were used to reconcile conflicting thermal hydraulic and reactor physics requirements in the liquid salt core. Use of LEMs allowed the design of a very favorable reactivity response which greatly benefits transient mitigation. A reactor vessel auxiliary cooling system (RVACS) and four redundant passive secondary auxiliary cooling systems (PSACS) are used to provide passive heat removal, and are able to successfully mitigate both an unprotected station blackout transient as well as protected transients in which a scram occurs. Additionally, it was determined that the power conversion system can be used to mitigate both a loss of flow accident and an unprotected transient overpower.

Degree

thesis:*
Department dc:contributor.department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Nuclear Science and Engineering.
Grantor dc:publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Year dc:date.issued
2008

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Petroski, Robert C
Advisor dc:contributor.advisor
  • Neil Todreas and Pavél Hejzlar.

Subjects

dc:subject × 1

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.
Language dc:language.iso
eng

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Handle dc:identifier.uri
http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/53281
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/53281

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
MIT
Base URL
dspace.mit.edu/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-22
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Petroski, Robert C. Design of a 2400MW liquid-salt cooled flexible conversion ratio reactor. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/53281