DEVELOPMENT OF A SMALL ELECTROMAGNETIC PUMP FOR MOLTEN SALT REACTORS

High-temperature nuclear reactors make use of molten metals and their alloys or molten salts for heat transfer functions from the active zones due to its high degree of thermal conductivity. Pumping of these liquid media by classical mechanical radial or axial pumps is, however, rather difficult and the lifetime of such devices is relatively low. It is known that electromagnetic pumps have several advantages over mechanical pumps: absence of moving parts, low noise and vibration level, simplicity of flow rate regulation, easy maintenance and so on, making them a logical and very efficient option for molten-salt and liquid-metal reactors. A research, design and development effort for the fabrication of a small molten-salt electromagnetic pump is proposed. Design, modeling and simulation studies will be performed during a phase I, including studies on engineering magnetohydrodynamics of molten-salts aiming to the improvement of our in-house computational tools as well as on hybrid-manufacturing methods. During a phase II, the fabrication and testing of a small molten-salt electromagnetic pump will be performed, including the development of a test loop and instrumentation for measurement and control. The coupling between the electromagnetics and thermo-fluid mechanical phenomena observed in electromagnetic pumps gives rise to complex engineering and numerical problems observed in different type of applications in the nuclear, space and industrial field. Therefore, future applications of this research can lead to the development of tools for the design, analysis and fabrication of technologies with applicability on: thermal control systems, advanced nuclear propulsion and power systems, generation IV reactors, targetry and machine protection mechanisms on high energy particle accelerators, and biomedical engineering problems such as artificial MHD heart studies.