Masters Theses

Date of Award

8-2020

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Major

Nuclear Engineering

Major Professor

Steven E. Skutnik

Committee Members

Ondrej Chvala, G. Ivan Maldonado

Abstract

This thesis details the generation of ORIGEN reactor libraries for liquid-fueled molten salt reactors. ORIGEN reactor libraries are a useful tool to quickly calculate the isotopic source term of a reactor. These libraries have been extensively studied and used for traditional reactor types, however, are not available for molten salt reactors. This thesis presents work on generating these libraries for molten salt reactor designs, including those with fission product processing and online refueling. Libraries for a single-fluid thermal fluoride salt reactor were created using the SCALE code system. These libraries were spaced using a new methodology based on analyzing the transition matrices of the libraries themselves. Additional libraries were generated that included the removal of fission products from the reactor. A methodology based on the effective one-group removal cross section of fission products was developed to limit the number of libraries needed to correctly capture the effects of fission product removal. Finally, a set of libraries was created that contained online refueling with varying feed rates and enrichments. This work created a robust method for generating ORIGEN reactor libraries for a variety of molten salt reactor designs. Additionally, it showed that the inclusion of advanced design features, such as fission product processing and online refueling, in the libraries is possible.

Download
Files over 3MB may be slow to open. For best results, right-click and select "save as..."

Share

COinS