Molten-salt reactors (MSRs) will likely require some level of irradiation testing as part of their licensing basis. An ideal experiment would consider the integrated effect of neutron flux and fission product generation in addition to circulating flow conditions. The feasibility of a natural-circulation irradiation salt loop in the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) is assessed here. The flow is induced by the innovative combination of gas-gaps and fin-gaps along the capsule wall to finetune radial heat conductance and therefore drive an axial temperature gradient across the experiment height. Following multiple design optimizations, a promising configuration was identified. The 45-kW experiment would generate a 0.15 m/s flow velocity with 6 kg of fuel-bearing salt. This demonstrates the possibility of generating appreciable flow rates within manageable experimental conditions (e.g., total size and heat generation). An initial assessment of species mass tracking inside the experiment was also performed to gain an understanding of radionuclide behavior within the system. Results showed that significant quantities of Xe can be extracted in the off-gas (1.7 kCi) for 8% bubble removal efficiency rate. These results highlight the potential value of such experiments. Further work will involve detailed engineering drawings and analyses of the loop, as well as more computationally expensive modeling of species mass tracking.

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Phase Change Materials (PCM) are used widely in passive heat storage system due to their high heat retention capacities. In the present work an attempt is made to use the PCM as an effective replacement to conventional EGR cooler. The prime advantages of using PCM as an alternative to the traditionally used EGR coolers are that, the pumping operation will no longer be a continuous process hence the power consumed by pumps would drastically reduce, so does the load on the engine and secondly there would be significant reduction in the weight of the system which would ultimately boost the fuel economy of the vehicle. The PCM candidate chosen for study is a Salt blend (59%KF+29%LiF+12%NaF). The chosen specimen's thermal performance is computed based on the duration for which the refrigerant pump remains idle. Using numerical simulation the melting period of PCM(Salt Blend) is computed and the simulation is verified by already established numerical and experimental results for a different material, Rubitherm (RT-42).

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