A Modular Radiant-Heat-Initiated Passive Decay-Heat-Removal System for Salt-Cooled Reactors

The Advanced High-Temperature Reactor (AHTR), also called the liquid-salt-cooled very high temperature reactor, is a new reactor concept that combines four existing technologies to create a new reactor option: coated-particle graphite-matrix fuels (the same fuel as used in high-temperature gas-cooled reactors), a liquid-fluoride-salt coolant with a boiling point >1200 C, Brayton power cycles, and passive safety systems. A new passive decay-heat cooling system has been invented that is actuated by the increased temperature of the salt under accident conditions and uses radiant heat transfer from and through the salt to a heat exchanger. This safety system takes advantage of two physical properties of the system: (1) the transparency of the salt coolant and (2) the increase in the radiant heat transfer from the salt to a decay-heat exchanger, which is proportional to the temperature of the hot salt to the fourth power (T4) minus the temperature of the heat exchanger surface to the fourth power (T4). For a high-temperature reactor, small increases in coolant temperatures dramatically increase radiant heat transfer