Steady state investigation on neutronics of a molten salt reactor considering the flow effect of fuel salt

The Molten Salt Reactor (MSR), one of the `Generation IV' concepts, is a liquid-fuel reactor, which is different from the conventional reactors using solid fissile materials due to the flow effect of fuel salt. The study on its neutronics considering the fuel salt flow, which is the base of the thermal-hydraulic calculation and safety analysis, must be done. In this paper, the theoretical model on neutronics under steady condition for a single-liquid-fueled MSR is conducted and calculated by numerical method. The neutronics model consists of two group neutron diffusion equations for fast and thermal neutron fluxes, and balance equations for six-group delayed neutron precursors considering the flow effect of fuel salt. The spatial discretization of the above models is based on the finite volume method, and the discretization equations are computed by the source iteration method. The distributions of neutron fluxes and the distributions of the delayed neutron precursors in the core are obtained. The numerical calculated results show that, the fuel salt flow has little effect on the distribution of fast and thermal neutron fluxes and the effective multiplication factor; however, it affects the distribution of the delayed neutron precursors significantly, especially the long-lived one. In addition, it could be found that the delayed neutron precursors influence the neutronics slightly under the steady condition.     

新型钍基熔盐堆多物理计算模型及分析

针对熔盐堆系统特点,提出了包含堆芯及其他主回路系统在内的多物理紧密耦合计算模型,并在此基础上自主开发了多物理分析程序TANG-MSR。利用该程序进行了新型钍基熔盐堆(TMSR)的设计,并对设计方案进行了稳态及瞬态分析。相关计算结果表明,TANG-MSR所采用的多物理模型能够很好地捕捉熔盐堆的主要物理现象,提出的新型熔盐堆设计在安全性和可持续性方面表现优异。关键词：多物理模型;新型钍基熔盐堆;稳态;瞬态 Abstract: Key words:     

Prediction of the thermophysical properties of molten salt fast reactor fuel from first-principles

Molten fluorides are known to show favourable thermophysical properties which make them good candidate coolants for nuclear fission reactors. Here we investigate the special case of mixtures of lithium fluoride and thorium fluoride, which act both as coolant and as fuel in the molten salt fast reactor concept. By using ab initio parameterised polarisable force fields, we show that it is possible to calculate the whole set of properties (density, thermal expansion, heat capacity, viscosity and thermal conductivity) which are necessary for assessing the heat transfer performance of the melt over the whole range of compositions and temperatures. We then deduce from our calculations several figures of merit which are important in helping the optimisation of the design of molten salt fast reactors.     

Measurements of effective delayed neutron fraction in a fast neutron reactor using the perturbation method

A perturbation method is proposed to obtain the effective delayed neutron fraction β_(eff) of a cylindrical highly enriched uranium reactor.Based on reactivity measurements with and without a sample at a specified position using the positive period technique,the reactor reactivity perturbation △ρ of the sample in β_(eff) units is measured.Simulations of the perturbation experiments are performed using the MCNP program.The PERT card is used to provide the difference dκ of effective neutron multiplication factors with and without the sample inside the reactor.Based on the relationship between the effective multiplication factor and the reactivity,the equation β~(eff)=dκ/△ρ is derived.In this paper,the reactivity perturbations of 13 metal samples at the designable position of the reactor are measured and calculated.The average β_(eff) value of the reactor is given as 0.00645,and the standard uncertainty is 3.0%.Additionally,the perturbation experiments for β_(eff) can be used to evaluate the reliabilities of the delayed neutron parameters.This work shows that the delayed neutron data of ~(235)U and ~(238)U from G.R.Keepin's publication are more reliable than those from ENDF-B6.0.ENDF-B7.0,JENDL3.3 and CENDL2.2.     

Comments on the Entropy of Nonequilibrium Steady States

We discuss the entropy of nonequilibrium steady states. We analyze the so-called spontaneous production of entropy in certain reversible deterministic nonequilibrium system, and its link with the collapse of such systems towards an attractor that is of lower dimension than the dimension of phase space. This means that in the steady state limit, the Gibbs entropy diverges to negative infinity. We argue that if the Gibbs entropy is expanded in a series involving 1, 2,... body terms, the divergence of the Gibbs entropy is manifest only in terms involving integrals whose dimension is higher than, approximately, the Kaplan–Yorke dimension of the steady state attractor. All the low order terms are finite and sum in the weak field limit to the local equilibrium entropy of linear irreversible thermodynamics.     

Modeling the heterogeneous traffic flow considering the effect of self-stabilizing and autonomous vehicles

With the increasing maturity of automatic driving technology,the homogeneous traffic flow will gradually evolve into the heterogeneous traffic flow,which consists of human-driving and autonomous vehicles.To better study the characteristics of the heterogeneous traffic system,this paper proposes a new car-following model for autonomous vehicles and heterogeneous traffic flow,which considers the self-stabilizing effect of vehicles.Through linear and nonlinear methods,this paper deduces and analyzes the stability of such a car-following model with the self-stabilizing effect.Finally,the model is verified by numerical simulation.Numerical results show that the self-stabilizing effect can make the heterogeneous traffic flow more stable,and that increasing the self-stabilizing coefficient or historical time length can strengthen the stability of heterogeneous traffic flow and alleviate traffic congestion effectively.In addition,the heterogeneous traffic flow can also be stabilized with a higher proportion of autonomous vehicles.     

Steady state Behaviour of a Three level Ladder Atomic System with Incoherent Population Pumping in a Squeezed Vacuum

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Equation of state for solids considering cohesive energy and anharmonic effect and its application to MgO

A simple equation of state(EOS) in wide ranges of pressure and temperature is constructed within the MieGrneisen-Debye framework.Instead of the popular Birch-Murnaghan and Vinet EOS,we employ a five-parameter cold energy expression to represent the static EOS term,which can correctly produce cohesive energy without any spurious oscillations in the extreme compression and expansion regions.We developed a Pad’e approximation-based analytic Debye quasiharmonic model with high accuracy which improves the performance of EOS in the low temperature region.The anharmonic effect is taken into account by using a semi-empirical approach.Its reasonability is verified by the fact that the total thermal pressure tends to the lowest-order anharmonic expansion in the literature at low temperature,and tends to ideal-gas limitation at high temperature,which is physically correct.Besides,based on this approach,the anharmonic thermal pressure can be expressed in the Gru¨neisen form,which is convenient for applications.The proposed EOS is used to study the thermodynamic properties of MgO including static and shock compression conditions,and the results are very satisfactory as compared with the experimental data.     

平面颗粒流的瓶颈效应及其与速度的关系

通过实验研究了二维传送带上圆片颗粒运动与开口大小及传送带速度的关系，发现当开口尺寸d固定时，存在临界速度vc，在v＜vc范围，流量Q随速度v线性增大，在vc处Q-v关系发生突变.改变颗粒运动速度v或改变开口尺寸d均有临界值，使颗粒流规律发生转变.这是由于开口尺寸或速度变化使颗粒间相互作用及颗粒流状态变化造成的. 关键词： 平面颗粒流 瓶颈效应     

Equation of state for solids with considering cohesive energy and anharmonic effect and its application to MgO

A simple equation of state (EOS) in wide ranges of pressure and temperature is constructed within the Mie-Grüneisen-Debye framework. Instead of the popular Birch-Murnaghan and Vinet EOS, we employ a five-parameter cold energy expression to represent the static EOS term, which can correctly produce cohesive energy without any spurious oscillations in extreme compression and expansion region. We developed a Padé approximation-based analytic Debye quasiharmonic model with high accuracy which improves the performance of EOS in low temperature region. The anharmonic effect is taken into account by using a semi-empirical approach. Its reasonability is verified by the fact that the total thermal pressure tends to the lowest-order anharmonic expansion in the literature at low temperature, and tends to ideal-gas limitation at high temperature, which is physically correct. Besides, based on this approach, the anharmonic thermal pressure can be expressed in the Grüneisen form, which is convenient for applications. The proposed EOS is used to study the thermodynamic properties of MgO including static and shock compression conditions, and the results are very satisfactory as compared with the experimental data.     

气流对电弧螺旋不稳定性的影响

采用与时间有关的线性微扰理论,研究了气流作用下电弧等离子体的螺旋不稳定性,导出了相应方程和满足的边界条件,给出了临界Maecker’s数和不稳定性增长率等定量结果.计算结果表明,轴向气流对电弧稳定性起重要作用     

拉曼效应对低双折射光纤偏振特性的影响

在低双折射光纤中,利用线偏振光满足的包含拉曼效应的非线性耦合模传输方程,通过引入斯托克斯参量,导出了斯托克斯参量所满足的耦合模传输方程.利用庞加莱球图示法,描述了拉曼增益效应作用下光波偏振态的演化,研究分析了拉曼效应对低双折射光纤中光波偏振态演化规律的影响.结果表明,当输入功率与运动常量满足一定关系时,拉曼增益效应改变了光波传输时其偏振态演化周期和偏振态的椭圆率.     

优先随机慢化及预测间距对交通流的影响

在周期性边界条件下，通过引入预测车辆间距对Noise-First模型进行改进，数值模拟了不同参数下的交通情形. 研究表明：引入预测间距的Noise-First模型更能真实地反映实际交通状况，不仅再现了启止波、同步流，而且出现了亚稳态，非平衡相变等与实际道路交通一致的非线性现象. 关键词： 交通流 元胞自动机 同步流 亚稳态     

The effect of moving bottlenecks on a two-lane traffic flow

In this paper, we study the effect of moving bottlenecks on traffic flow. The full velocity difference （FVD） model is extended to the traffic flow on a two-lane highway, and new lane changing rule is proposed to reproduce the vehicular lane changing behavior. Using this model, we derive the fundamental current-density diagrams for the traffic flow with the effect of moving bottleneck. Moreover, typical time-space diagram for a two-lane highway shows the formation and dissipation of a moving bottleneck. Results demonstrate that the effect of moving bottleneck enlarges with the increase of traffic density, but the effect can be reduced by increasing the maximum velocity of heavy truck. The effects of multiple moving bottlenecks under different conditions are investigated. The effect becomes more remarkable when the coupling effect of multiple moving bottlenecks occurs.     

Impact of the honk effect on the stability of traffic flow

In this paper, we propose an extended car-following model which takes into account the honk effect. The analytical and numerical results show that the honk effect improves the stability of traffic flow. The dependence of the stability on the properties of the honk effect is investigated in this paper.     

Influence of the nuclear equation of state on the hadron-quark phase transition in neutron stars

We study the hadron-quark phase transition in the interior of neutron stars, and examine the influence of the nuclear equation of state on the phase transition and neutron star properties. The relativistic mean field theory with several parameter sets is used to construct the nuclear equation of state, while the     

霍尔效应推力器放电双稳态机理研究

实验发现霍尔效应推力器在自励磁模式下具有两个稳定的放电工作点,且运 行过程中在这两个工作点上往复跳变,很大程度上影响了推力器通道内等离子体的放 电物理过程及其综合性能.本文结合推力器放电磁安特性曲线与励磁电流曲线的相互关 系,给出了推力器放电双稳态特性形成的物理机理．在此基础上提出了通过改变励磁电 流曲线斜率,使推力器稳定工作于单放电工作点的方法,结合一维动态流体模型给予了物 理解释,并通过实验加以验证.     

Density waves in a lattice hydrodynamic traffic flow model with the anticipation effect

By introducing the traffic anticipation effect in the real world into the original lattice hydrodynamic model, we present a new anticipation effect lattice hydrodynamic (AELH) model, and obtain the linear stability condition of the model by applying the linear stability theory. Through nonlinear analysis, we derive the Burgers equation and Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) equation, to describe the propagating behaviour of traffic density waves in the stable and the metastable regions, respectively. The good agreement between simulation results and analytical results shows that the stability of traffic flow can be enhanced when the anticipation effect is considered.     

Charge state effect on the K-shell ionization of iron by xenon ions near the Bohr velocity

Fe K-shell ionization cross sections induced by 2.4–6.0 MeV Xe20+are measured and compared with different binaryencounter-approximation(BEA)models.The results indicate that the BEA model corrected both by the Coulomb repulsion and by the effective nuclear charge(Zeff)agrees well with the experimental data.Comparison of Fe K-shell X-ray emission induced by 5 MeV xenon ions with different initial charge states(20+,22+,26+,30+)verifies the applicability of the effective nuclear charge(Zeff)correction for the BEA model.It is found that Zeffcorrection is reasonable to describe direct ionization induced by xenon ions with no initial M-shell vacancies.However,when the M shell is opened,the Zeffcorrected BEA model is unable to explain the inner-shell ionization,and the electron transfer by molecular-orbital promotion should be considered.