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Patent US10438705
Issued 2019-10-08
Fission Reaction Control In A Molten Salt Reactor
A molten salt reactor includes a nuclear reactor core for sustaining a nuclear fission reaction fueled by a molten fuel salt. A molten fuel salt control system removes a volume of the molten fuel salt from the nuclear reactor core to maintain a reactivity parameter within a range of nominal reactivity. The molten fuel salt control system includes a molten fuel salt exchange system that fluidically couples to the nuclear reactor core and exchanges a volume of the molten fuel salt with a volume of a feed material containing a mixture of a selected fertile material and a carrier salt. The molten fuel salt control system can include a volumetric displacement control system having one or more volumetric displacement bodies insertable into the nuclear reactor core. Each volumetric displacement body can remove a volume of molten fuel salt from the nuclear reactor core, such as via a spill-over system.
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USPTO Full Text Publication >
- 1. A fast spectrum molten salt reactor comprising:
one or more heat exchangers; an unmoderated nuclear reactor core configured to contain a volume of molten fuel salt of sufficient size to establish criticality due to the production of fast neutrons within the volume; a primary coolant system configured to circulate a molten fuel salt-coolant mixture between the unmoderated nuclear reactor core and the one or more heat exchangers; and a molten fuel salt exchange system, the molten fuel salt exchange system being configured to reduce reactivity of the fast spectrum molten salt reactor by replacing a selected volume of the molten fuel salt-coolant mixture with a selected volume of feed material when a parameter indicative of reactivity of the molten salt reactor indicates that the reactivity has increased above an upper threshold defining a maximum reactivity, wherein the molten fuel salt exchange system is fluidically coupled to the nuclear reactor core and configured to exchange the selected volume of the molten fuel salt-coolant mixture with the selected volume of feed material containing a mixture of a selected fertile material and a carrier salt, wherein the feed material does not contain any fissile material, wherein the molten fuel salt exchange system is configured to control a composition of UCl3—UCl4—NaCl as a whole in a fast spectrum fission reaction by exchanging the feed material with the selected volume of the molten fuel salt-coolant mixture in the nuclear reactor core.
