A study on the neutronic performance of the ARIES-RS fusion reactor with various coolants bearing nuclear fuel

Abstract

Heavy metal molten salts have a good potential to be used in fusion reactors due to their capability of increasing fusion power and producing fissile fuel. In this study, the effect of various molten salts bearing nuclear fuel (99.5 % Flibe + 0.5 % Weapon grade (WG) PuF4, 99 % Flibe + 1% WG PuF4, 99.5 % Flibe + 0.5 % Reactor Grade (RG) PuF4, 99 % Flibe + 1 % RG PuF4, 75 % LiF + 25% ThF4, 75 % LiF + 24 % ThF4 + 1 % (UF4)-U-233 and 75% LiF+23%ThF4 +2 % (UF4)-U-233) on the neutronic performance of a magnetic fusion reactor called ARIES-RS was investigated. Neutron transport calculations were performed with the help of the code, Scale4.3. Numerical results showed that a significant enhancement on the neutronic performance was achieved with respect to the energy multiplication and fissile fuel breeding by keeping the sufficient tritium for the (DT) driver compared to the pure ARIES-RS fusion reactor for all investigated coolants except for the salts of 75 % LiF+25% ThF4 and 75% LiF+24% ThF4+1% (UF4)-U-233. Since these two salts did not satisfy tritium self-sufficiency.