Developing of instrumentation technologies for a future zero power reactor experiment on molten salt reactors

Description

Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs) are a next-generation nuclear reactor technology outlined by Generation IV International Forum, fulfilling sustainability, economics, safety, and proliferation resistance goals. MSRs have drawn significant attention from industry and research communities in recent years due to the numerous safety and operational benefits. MSRs have the potential to close the nuclear fuel cycle, significantly reduce the amount of nuclear waste produced, and even operate on spent nuclear fuel from existing nuclear reactors, while opening the opportunity for significantly reducing the fuel cycle and the production cost of energy.

In the frame of developing an innovative reactor system, a zero-power experiment is the first important step, which, if successful, leads to the start of a considerably large and complex programme. In addition, it is often seen as a low-cost and low-risk opportunity to study a novel reactor system. Among other things, the zero-power experiment should provide valuable data for validation and verification of nuclear codes, create an improved understanding of the developing system and prove its safety to the regulator. It will educate the UK in designing, licensing, constructing, commissioning, and operating a new kind of innovative reactor.

Zero-power reactor experiments for a molten salt reactor will be significantly different to existing experiments which have been developed for solid fuelled reactors with the main purpose to understand the effects of the heterogeneous core arrangement. Especially, molten salt reactor cores for fast reactors will be homogeneous arrangements which create a new challenge on control and shutdown as well as on the experiments and the required instrumentation, while the typical discrimination will be on the composition of the salt itself (eg. NaCl or LiF based compositions). The PhD will focus on the development of innovative instrumentation technologies in close collaboration between the department of Physics and the reactor physics group of the School of Engineering.

You will be associated with our brand-new STFC Centre for Doctoral Training on Innovation in Data Intensive Science, LIV.INNO. The centre offers comprehensive training in data science, including machine learning techniques, data analysis and modelling techniques. It also offers a range of workshops, schools and complementary skills trainings to which you will have access to. This will help further boost your skills during your PhD. 

For any enquiries please contact Professor Bruno Merk on: 

To apply for this opportunity, please visit: https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/study/postgraduate-research/how-to-apply/ and click on the 'Ready to apply? Apply online' button, to start your application.