Graphite behavior in molten salt environments

Molten salt reactors (MSRs) represent an innovative reactor design that holds promise for the future of nuclear energy. However, they come with unique challenges due to limited experimental data, operational experience, and analysis methods available for structural integrity assessment. Here, computational models are provided to evaluate two critical degradation mechanisms: molten salt infiltration into graphite in fuel-salt designs and wear in pebble bed-based MSR. Detailed discussion of the results and analysis for the above-mentioned degradation mechanisms could be found in the technical report ((Prithivirajan, 2025)).

Infiltration effects on graphite

Wear analysis of graphite

References

Veerappan Prithivirajan. Computational Modeling of Graphite Degradation due to Molten Salt Infiltration and Wear. Technical Report NL/RPT-25-86762, Idaho National Laboratory (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States), 08 2025.

@techreport{Prithivi2025,
    author = "Prithivirajan, Veerappan",
    title = "{Computational Modeling of Graphite Degradation due to Molten Salt Infiltration and Wear}",
    number = "NL/RPT-25-86762",
    institution = "Idaho National Laboratory (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)",
    place = "United States",
    year = "2025",
    month = "08"
}

References