Creating a Molten Salt Component Reliability' Database:Initial Efforts and Path Forward

摘要

Component reliability databases are rare for advanced reactor concepts. Decreased interest in advanced reactor concepts, particularly molten salt reactors (MSRs), from the mid-1970s until the early 2000s has resulted in limited or unknown availability of operating and maintenance data needed for component reliability estimates because: (1) limited advanced reactor experiential data was pursued over this time period; and (2) the existence and storage locations of detailed operating data from experimental advanced reactors operated during the 1950s and 1960s are not well-understood. However, the re-emergence of interest in MSRs since the inception of the Generation Ⅳ International Forum in 2001 has motivated the development of new methodologies for leveraging existing, albeit limited, advanced reactor operational and maintenance data for design and reliability insights. A collaboration between the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), and Vanderbilt University (VU) is aimed at establishing the structure and contents of a component reliability database for MSRs. VU is tasked with collecting MSR component reliability data with the help of ORNL, who is also constructing and hosting the database. EPRI is providing insight to the project from its role as a postulated end user of the database.