A Simple Analytical Model to Predict the Freeze Plug Opening Time in Molten Salt Reactors

The Freeze plug is an important passive safety system used in molten salt reactor (MSR). It enables automatic drainage of the liquid fuel from the core to the storage tanks in an emergency to stop the nuclear fission chain reaction without any operator's action or electric power supply. The opening time, that is the time taken for the freeze plug to open, is therefore of considerable importance to ensure passive safety of MSR. In our previous studies, systematic numerical simulations were carried out to understand how the fundamental design parameters such as the tube diameter and wall thickness of the freeze plug affected the opening time. In this work, a simple analytical model was developed for rough estimation of the opening time. It was shown that the opening time calculated by the present simple model was in fairly good agreement with that by the full simulation using the mass, momentum, and energy conservation equations for the salt and the heat conduction equation within the wall material. The present simple model was hence shown to be useful particularly for the schematic design of the improved MSR freeze plugs.