@article{8fa466c3b6344df884efc44fe8062897,
title = "Preliminary design of control rods in the single-fluid double-zone thorium molten salt reactor (SD-TMSR)",
abstract = "Recent studies on Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs) showed that the excess reactivity at the beginning of the operation is large for many fueling strategies and must be compensated by a reactivity control system. The current work introduces a reliable safety system based on control rods in addition to the online feed system reactivity control in the Single-fluid Double-zone Thorium-based Molten Salt Reactor (SD-TMSR). Three different initial fissile loadings are considered: 233U, reactor-grade Pu, and transuranic (TRU) elements as a startup fuel. We applied six different absorbing materials to investigate the main operational and safety parameters in the SD-TMSR: natural B4C, enriched B4C with 90% 10B, HfB2, HfH1.62, Eu2O3, and Gd2O3. The present work focuses on control rod design, integral and differential control rod worth, shutdown margin, and shadowing effects at steady-state. We employed the SERPENT-2 Monte-Carlo code to calculate the reactivity worth and analyze the performance of the reactivity control system. We showed that 233U and reactor-grade Pu startup cores maintain adequate shutdown margin with all considered absorbers. Finally, this paper proposes a design of control rod clusters that compensate the excess reactivity of the SD-TMSR loaded with different initial fissile material.",
keywords = "Control rod, MSR, Monte Carlo, Reactivity, Safety, Thorium fuel cycle",
author = "O. Ashraf and Andrei Rykhlevskii and Tikhomirov, {G. V.} and Huff, {Kathryn D.}",
note = "Osama Ashraf would like to thank the Egyptian Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE), as well as MEPhI's Competitiveness Program for providing financial support for this research. The facility and tools needed to conduct this work were supported by MEPhI. The authors contributed to this work as described below. Osama Ashraf conceived and designed the simulations, wrote the paper, prepared figures and/or tables, performed the computation work, and reviewed drafts of the paper. Andrei Rykhlevskii conceived and designed the simulations, wrote the paper, prepared figures and/or tables, performed the computation work, and reviewed drafts of the paper. Andrei Rykhlevskii is supported by DOE ARPA-E MEITNER program award DE-AR0000983. G. V. Tikhomirov directed and supervised the work, conceived and designed the simulations and reviewed drafts of the paper. Prof. Tikhomirov is Deputy Director of the Institute of Nuclear Physics and Engineering MEPhI. Board member of Nuclear society of Russia. Kathryn D. Huff supervised the work, conceived and contributed to conception of the simulations, and reviewed drafts of the paper. Prof. Huff is supported by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Faculty Development Program, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, the International Institute for Carbon Neutral Energy Research (WPI-I2CNER), sponsored by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, and DOE ARPA-E MEITNER program award DE-AR0000983. This research is part of the Blue Waters sustained-petascale computing project, which is supported by the National Science Foundation (awards OCI-0725070 and ACI-1238993) and the state of Illinois. Blue Waters is a joint effort of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and its National Center for Supercomputing Applications Andrei Rykhlevskii conceived and designed the simulations, wrote the paper, prepared figures and/or tables, performed the computation work, and reviewed drafts of the paper. Andrei Rykhlevskii is supported by DOE ARPA-E MEITNER program award DE-AR0000983. Kathryn D. Huff supervised the work, conceived and contributed to conception of the simulations, and reviewed drafts of the paper. Prof. Huff is supported by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Faculty Development Program, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, the International Institute for Carbon Neutral Energy Research (WPI-I2CNER), sponsored by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, and DOE ARPA-E MEITNER program award DE-AR0000983. This research is part of the Blue Waters sustained-petascale computing project, which is supported by the National Science Foundation (awards OCI-0725070 and ACI-1238993) and the state of Illinois. Blue Waters is a joint effort of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and its National Center for Supercomputing Applications Osama Ashraf would like to thank the Egyptian Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE), as well as MEPhI{\textquoteright}s Competitiveness Program for providing financial support for this research. The facility and tools needed to conduct this work were supported by MEPhI.",
year = "2021",
month = mar,
doi = "10.1016/j.anucene.2020.108035",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "152",
journal = "Annals of Nuclear Energy",
issn = "0306-4549",
publisher = "Elsevier Ltd",
}