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Playing the “bad guy” to enhance next-generation safety
Sometimes, cops and robbers is more than just a kid’s game. At the Department of Energy’s national laboratories, researchers are channeling their inner saboteurs to discover vulnerabilities in next-generation nuclear reactors, making sure that they’re as safe as possible before they’re even constructed.
R. E. Nygren
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 47 | Number 3 | April 2005 | Pages 549-553
Technical Paper | Fusion Energy - First Wall, Blanket, and Shield | doi.org/10.13182/FST05-8
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Investigations of designs with a flowing free-surface molten salt as a first wall in the Advanced Power Extraction (APEX) Program led to questions concerning the liquidus temperature and solidification processes for the [1:1:1] composition in the LiF, BeF2 and NaF system. Sandia experiments, reported in this conference, showed a liquidus temperature near 425°C for the [1:1:1] composition. We also identified other compositions that showed congruent (eutectic) solidification and had sufficiently low melting temperatures (~305-320°C) to be useful in this application. Further characterization of these materials is necessary to evaluate their potential. This paper summarizes a 3-D finite element analysis of the experiment that evaluates thermal gradients in the salt pool and crucible, reproduces the "thermal plateau" associated with the isothermal freezing of a eutectic, and compares the calculated temperatures with readings from the three thermocouples in the experiment.