Optimization of flux distribution in a molten-salt reactor with a 2-region core for plutonium burning

Molten-salt reactors (MSRs) are selected as one of the candidates of Generation IV reactor concepts. In GLOBAL2005 held in Tsukuba, Japan, one paper discussed the flattening of fast neutron flux in the core for a longer life of graphite moderator. In the paper a 3-region reactor concept was presented. The authors tried many cores changing configurations such as volume of each region and fractions of fuel salt in the regions or fuel compositions.

We investigated the other possibility of a 2-region core for the simplicity. Using one energy group neutron diffusion theory and considering extrapolation distance, the optimum selection of region wise neutron multiplication factors can be theoretically and easily obtained. In MSRs, there is no burnup distribution of the fuel. The region wise neutron multiplications can be obtained by adjusting the volume fraction of fuel in a cell with a given composition of the fuel salt. Using the theoretical results, the optimization of the actual core configuration was determined by a nuclear analysis code SRAC2002 with the nuclear data library of JENDL3.3.

In this paper, we considered MSRs using plutonium as a fissile material. Ordinary MSRs use uranium-233, which doesn't exist naturally, and utilizing plutonium is easier to startup.