SUMMARY

Nuclear energy represents a much-needed source of power production for the future through lowering carbon emissions while maintaining consistent uptime. In particular, Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs) are in line to be on the forefront of the next generation of nuclear reactors. MSRs provide advantages over previous generations of reactors through their use of inorganic salts as their coolant. Liquid salts provide advantages by increasing the overall safety of the reactor while also providing strong thermal transport properties and low neutron interaction probabilities. The salts bring their own unique challenges when working with them however, as they are corrosive to structural materials and often hazardous to human health. Of importance for the first generation of MSRs will be the inclusion of an array of experimental systems. These systems will provide data and experience for the construction of future MSRs.
The experimental systems will include subsystems for making measurements of a variety of different characteristics of the molten salts and fission products produced during operation. These systems will allow reactor operators to better understand the reactor throughout its lifetime by identifying the chemical state of the salt, the corrosion of the structural materials, and the fission product content of the effluents. Designs will by necessity involve interfacing with other major reactor subsystems. In cases where extraction of salts or corrosion testing materials are involved the experimental system will have to transfer materials from the reactor to outside of containment. To this end, the design of robust, safe, and informative experimental systems will be investigated in support of licensing a research MSR. Experimental lab work and simulation work is performed in order to verify performance of the designs where possible.