Preliminary LOFC Analysis of a TMSR-SF1 Concept Design Using CFD Method

The thorium molten salt experimental reactor with solid fuels (TMSR-SF1) was one of the conceptual designs developed by Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (SINAP, CAS). The fuel pebbles at the reactor core and the pool type structure of the vessel increase the complexity of thermal-hydraulic (T-H) analysis of the reactor. In order to analysis the T-H feature of TMSR-SF1 in case of the postulated Loss Of Forced Cooling (LOFC) accident, and investigate whether its external air cooling system with nature convection is capable of removing the residual heat, the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) method was used to model the reactor and simulate the transient. In this research, an integrated pseudo 2-D thermal-hydraulic model of the core was developed and a simulation and analysis of the LOFC accident has been conducted. The preliminary calculation results using CFD method show that the external air cooling system has the capability of removing the residual heat. The calculation results also indicate that the peak temperatures of the fuel pebbles, key components and structures of TMSR-SF1 remain under the safety limits and the temperature of the molten salt remains below boiling point.