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Abstract
K. Nagy, J.L. Kloosterman, D. Lathouwers, and T.H.J.J. van der Hagen,
Definition of Breeding Gain for Molten Salt Reactors,
International Conference on the Physics of Reactors, "Advances in Reactor Physics to power the Nuclear Renaissance" (PHYSOR-2010), Pittsburgh, USA (2010).
The graphite-moderated Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) is a potential breeder reactor using the thorium fuel cycle.
The MSR has unique properties due to the possibility of making changes to the salt composition during operation.
Most important is the extraction of protactinium, which separates the fissile uranium production into two volumes:
the reactor core and the external stockpile. The paper focuses on the definition of breeding gain in such a system.
The prospects of using breeding gain expressions defined for solid fuel reactors are investigated and new definitions
are given which incorporate the processes occuring in the reactor core and the external stockpile.
The difference of the growth rate of the mass of fissile material and breeding gain is pointed out.
The new definitions are applied to an optimization study of the graphite-salt lattice of a breeder MSR.
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