There is increasing interest in using ionic molten-salt Flibe not only as self-cooled tritium(T)-breeding material in a fusion reactor blanket but also as fuel solvent of molten-salt fission reactors. Application of Flibe to T-breeding fluid for a stellarator-type fusion reactor operated at a high magnetic field brings large simplification of its blanket structure, allowing continuous operation...

The nature of two explosions that were witnessed within 3 s at the Chernobyl-4 reactor less than a minute after 21:23:00 UTC on April 25, 1986, have since then been the subject of sprawling interpretations. This paper renders the following hypothesis. The first explosion consisted of thermal neutron mediated nuclear explosions in one or rather a few fuel channels, which caused a jet of debris t...

Since its discovery 75 years ago fission has been at the forefront of nuclear science and engineering research. Although the fission process is being used worldwide to generate safe reliable power, there are several aspects of the fission process which are still not well known. One such parameter of the fission process is the prompt fission neutron spectrum (PFNS). Although the average number o...

This paper addresses the particular need to develop suitable fabrication techniques of glasses to improve the radiation-resistance and extend the lifetime of optical fibres in high radiation background. Two radiation hardening techniques based on hydrogen and fluorine doping of glass have been applied on step index pure silica core optical fibres. The radiation-induced optical absorption and lu...

Constant improvements of the computational power and methods as well demands accurate reliable measurements for reactor operation safety require a continuous upgrade instrumentation. In particular, nuclear sensors used in fission reactors (research or reactors) fusion facilities are operated under intense mixed neutron gamma-ray fields, need to be calibrated modeled provide selective measuremen...

In this preliminary scoping study, post-accident temperature transients of several fusion-fission designs utilizing ITER-FEAT-like parameters and fission pebble bed fuel technology are examined using a 1-D cylindrical Matlab heat transfer code along with conventional fission decay heat approximations. Scenarios studied include systems with no additional passive safety features to systems with m...

Nuclear accidents that lead to melting of a reactor core create heterogeneous materials containing hundreds of radionuclides, many with short half-lives. The long-lived fission products and transuranium elements within damaged fuel remain a concern for millennia. Currently, accurate fundamental models for the prediction of release rates of radionuclides from fuel, especially in contact with wat...

This work examines the effect of recycling Ln(III) fission products together with An(III) TRU in existing PWRs without separating them as commonly assumed. TRU recycling in three different fuel forms was studied: U-MOX, Th-MOX, and Fertile Free Fuel. We analyzed the effect of Ln(III) separation on fuel cycle length, efficiency of TRU destruction, and the core reactivity feedback coefficients. T...

This paper discusses work done to find an estimate of the maximum achievable discharge burnup in open cycle molten salt reactor (MSR). An in-development deterministic code (WIMS11) is used create a model simple generic MSR, and methodology employed discussed. Some experimentation with regards internal set-up ‘unit cells’ within core, which shows there strong link between this geometry burnup. W...