Molten Salt Technology
University of Wisconsin-Madison, Nuclear Engineering and Engineering Physics (NEEP) 602
Raluca Scarlat
LECTURE: Spring 2017 (18 Jan – 3 May). 4 pm-5.15pm CST Mo. & Wed 1153 ME
Office Hours: Tuesday: 2-2.30pm, Thursdays: 2-2.30pm, 921 ERB
Course objectives:
- To familiarize the students with the industrial applications of high temperature molten salts.
- To train the students on the fundamental phenomena pertaining to thermodynamics, heat transfer, chemistry, and neutron physics of molten salt systems.
- To provide the students with practice researching and reading scientific journal papers pertaining to molten salts.
- To expose the students to current activities and areas of interest in the industry.
Prerequisites: A basic background in thermodynamics, heat transfer, and chemistry.
Topics
- History of Molten Salt Reactors
- Overview of Molten Salt coolants in the nuclear industry, present: molten salt and salt-cooled reactors
- Molten salt coolants in fusion systems
- Overview of Molten Salt coolants in the rest of the fuel cycle: spent fuel reprocessing, vitrification
- Overview of molten fluoride salts in other industries: metals production, and glass
- Thermodynamics of mixtures
- Chemistry of molten fluorides
- Isotope transport in molten fluorides
- Corrosion
- Thermal-hydraulics of molten salts: unique physics
- Thermal-hydraulics of molten salts: design of active and passive systems
- Neutronics of salt-cooled and molten-salt reactors
- Safety Analysis and Licensing
- Design Considerations & Current Industry Needs
Assigned Readings, Course Notes & Materials
Grading:
- Two exams: Midterm 20%/ Final 40%.
- Assignments & class participation: 40%
- Grading Policy: A: >80; AB: 75-80; B: 70-75; BC: 65-70; C: 60-65; D: 50-60; F: <50.
Slack:
Join moltensalt.slack.com
Use slack to reach me and your colleagues in the class. You can ask questions, answer questions, share interesting resources, and send direct messages to me or anyone in the class.
Readings:
Pdfs of assigned readings will be uploaded on slack, under the #readings channel.
Class website:
Assignments will be posted on the class website.
Edublogs:
You have to create a blog to which you will post all of your assignments for this course.
The assignments for this course will ask you to discuss some of the assigned readings, and explain and provide example calculations for the concepts discussed in the readings. The purpose of submitting your assignments online is to share what you learn with everybody else in rest of the world that’s interested in learning about molten salts reactors. You are welcome to post to this blog any other interesting material or resources that you wish, in order to make it a more comprehensive and useful website. I also highly recommend that you create a front page, to which you link all of your individual blog posts for each of your assignments, this makes it easy for me, when I grade, and for everyone else to navigate your site.
Class format:
Every class will start with a 30-minute lecture, which I will record and post online. The following 45 minutes will be used for discussion of the lecture and the reading assignment, and in-class problems.
Academic integrity:
The honor system applies for all work and activities related to this class, and academic integrity is expected. Please refer to The Academic Integrity Statement of UW-Madison.