Utilization of Heavy Metal Molten Salts in the ARIES-RS Fusion Reactor

ARIES-RS is one of the major magnetic fusion energy reactor designs that uses a blanket having vanadium alloy structure cooled by lithium [1, 2]. It is a deuterium–tritium (DT) fusion driven reactor, having a fusion power of 2170 MW [1, 2]. This study presents the neutronic analysis of the ARIES-RS fusion reactor using heavy metal molten salts in which Li₂BeF₄ as the main constituent was mixed with increased mole fractions of heavy metal salt (ThF₄ or UF₄) starting by 2 mol.% up to 12 mol.%. Neutron transport calculations were carried out with the help of the SCALE 4.3 system by solving the Boltzmann transport equation with the XSDRNPM code in 238 neutron groups and a S ₈–P ₃ approximation. According to the numerical results, tritium self-sufficiency was attained for the coolants, Flibe with 2% UF₄ or ThF₄ and 4% UF₄. In addition, higher energy multiplication values were found for the salt with UF₄ compared to that with ThF₄. Furthermore, significant amount of high quality nuclear fuel was produced to be used in external reactors.