A refined time-delay modeling of the molten salt reactor dynamics

The effect of time-delay on the stability characteristics of a molten salt reactor is inspected within a refined dynamic modeling framework. The proposed approach accounts for the time-delay in the fuel transport caused by the piping which connects the core to the heat exchanger. A bifurcation treatment is carried out to investigate this parametric stability. Results indicate a narrowing of the stability domain in the plane characterized by the thermal feedback coefficients and a noticeable tendency towards instability as the value of time-delay is raised. Moreover, temporal simulations are conducted on this model subjected separately to an external reactivity and a heat sink temperature perturbation as the plant inputs. Higher peaks (overshoots/undershoots) are figured out for both cases in line with the increase in time-delay which predicates relative inclination towards instability. The latter system however exhibits an adverse input/output behavior.