On an optimized neutron shielding for an advanced molten salt fast reactor design

The molten salt reactor technology has gained renewed interest. In contrast to the historic molten salt reactors, the current projects are based on designing a molten salt fast reactor. Thus the shielding becomes significantly more challenging than in historic concepts. One very interesting and innovative result of the most recent EURATOM project on molten salt reactors – EVOL – is the fluid flow optimized design of the inner core vessel using curved blanket walls. The developed structure leads to a very uniform flow distribution. The design avoids all core internal structures. On the basis of this new geometry a model for neutron physics calculation is presented and applied for a shielding optimization. Based on these results an optimized shielding strategy is developed for the molten salt fast reactor to keep the fluence in the safety related outer vessel below expected limit values. A lifetime of 80 years can be assured, but the size of the core/blanket system has to be significantly increased and will finally be comparable to a sodium cooled fast reac-tor. The HELIOS results are verified against Monte-Carlo calculations with very satisfactory agreement for a deep penetration problem.