The Conceptual Design of Electron-accelerator-driven Subcritical Thorium Molten Salt System

Molten salt technology worked successfully in Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) of Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in the early 1960s. To advance the safety of the molten salt reactor, an external neutron source is considered to join into the center core. With comparison of cost effect between proton accelerator driven neutron source and electron accelerator driven neutron source, a notion to use an electron accelerator driver is in reason. A general monte carlo n-particle transport code is used to compute the neutron multiplication coefficient of the subcritical reactor core model driven by electron source (Ks), which has different definition compared with non- driven source one (Keff), and the total fissions in this subcritical system, which is counted straightforward and precisely. Besides, a series of simulations are taken to compare groups of parameters in steady-state core and validate the theoretic feasibility for the subcritical experiment system.