Regular Article

Heat exchanger design studies for molten salt fast reactor

¹ FİGES Engineering, R&D Center, Nuclear Technology Department, 06690 Ankara, Turkey
² Eskişehir Osmangazi University, Mechanical Engineering Department, 26040 Eskişehir, Turkey
³ FİGES Engineering, Teknopark-İstanbul, Additive Manufacturing Systems Department, 34906 İstanbul, Turkey

^* e-mail: huseyin.ayhan@figes.com.tr

Received: 15 February 2019
Received in final form: 8 July 2019
Accepted: 20 September 2019
Published online: 11 November 2019

Abstract

In this study, conceptual design for primary heat exchanger of the Molten Salt Fast Reactor is made. The design was carried out to remove the produced heat from the reactor developed under the SAMOFAR project. Nominal power of the reactor is 3 GWth and it has 16 heat exchangers. There are several requirements related to the heat exchanger. To sustain the steady-state conditions, heat exchangers have to transfer the heat produced in the core and it has to maintain the temperature drop as much as the temperature rise in the core due to the fission. It should do it as fast as possible. It must also ensure that the fuel temperature does not reach the freezing temperature to avoid solidification. In doing so, the fuel volume in the heat exchanger must not exceed the specified limit. Design studies were carried out taking into account all requirements and final geometric configurations were determined. Plate type heat exchanger was adopted in this study. 3D CFD analyses were performed to investigate the thermal-hydraulic behavior of the system. Analyses were made by ANSYS-Fluent commercial code. Results are in a good agreement with limitations and requirements specified for the reactor designed under the SAMOFAR project.