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2025 ANS Annual Conference
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Chicago, IL|Chicago Marriott Downtown
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High-temperature plumbing and advanced reactors
The use of nuclear fission power and its role in impacting climate change is hotly debated. Fission advocates argue that short-term solutions would involve the rapid deployment of Gen III+ nuclear reactors, like Vogtle-3 and -4, while long-term climate change impact would rely on the creation and implementation of Gen IV reactors, “inherently safe” reactors that use passive laws of physics and chemistry rather than active controls such as valves and pumps to operate safely. While Gen IV reactors vary in many ways, one thing unites nearly all of them: the use of exotic, high-temperature coolants. These fluids, like molten salts and liquid metals, can enable reactor engineers to design much safer nuclear reactors—ultimately because the boiling point of each fluid is extremely high. Fluids that remain liquid over large temperature ranges can provide good heat transfer through many demanding conditions, all with minimal pressurization. Although the most apparent use for these fluids is advanced fission power, they have the potential to be applied to other power generation sources such as fusion, thermal storage, solar, or high-temperature process heat.1–3
Bing Hong, Chao Liu, Taosheng Li, Yongfeng Wang, Yanan Li, Mohamed Mazunga
Nuclear Technology | Volume 201 | Number 2 | February 2018 | Pages 174-179
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2017.1406270
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Long counters are widely used for monitoring neutron fluence owing to their constant response in a wide energy range. In this study, an extended long counter named FDS-LC (FDS Long Counter), having a flat response over a wide neutron energy range from 1 keV to 20 MeV, was developed to monitor high neutron fluence. The geometry and basic structure of FDS-LC was optimized by using Monte Carlo simulations, and it consists of the BF3 thermal neutron counter, the inner and outer polyethylene moderators, borated polyethylene absorption layer, and chromium and lead metal neutron multiplier. The parameters such as the effective center, the energy response, and the angluar response of the FDS-LC were estimated using Super Monte Carlo code. The experimental validation of these parameters were performed by using 241Am-Be source and T(d, n)3He neutron source at the China Institute of Atomic Energy in Beijing. The results showed that the fluctuation of the response in the energy range from 1 keV to 20 MeV was less than 12% and the effective center positions were approximately equal to The comparison of the simulation and experimental results of the angular response function showed good agreement with a maximum deviation less than 15.7%.
