Sophie's Research Plan - ondrejch/Molten_salt_chemistry GitHub Wiki
Work Scope
Sophie will be supporting the development and testing of a simulation surrogacy tool which will be used to model the redox control of a molten salt fuel at various points throughout the life of the salt. Her work will be an adaptation of the work done by Loc Duong in his unpublished paper Thermodynamic Calculations and Chemical Control in Molten LiF-BeF2 Salt Reactors. The research will be completed in three phases as outlined in the Research Description below. Sophie will work closely with myself and Jorge and will be expected to attend regular group meetings where we can share our progress and determine together the next steps forward. Deliverables, as described in the Research Description, will be used to motivate the work and to gauge progress.
Research Description
Phase 1 - Getting Started
Description: In this phase of research Sophie will familiarize herself with the field of molten salt chemistry and the tools we will be using in later phases of research. She will be expected to complete each of the deliverables below. These deliverables are intended to help her gain a deeper understanding of current developments related to her research, develop the technical writing skills she will need to present her work, and practice the collection and interpretation of data using thermochemical modeling tools such as thermochimica.
Deliverables:
- 2 Technical Presentations (10 min): During this phase Sophie will be working to familiarize herself with Thermochimica. She will complete simple training tasks and practice submitting simulations and interpreting the outputs. In this technical presentation she will explain the work she has done, why it is significant and demonstrate a clear understanding of the results of her simulations. These presentations will be given to the group once each set of box projects is complete it is complete.
- ** 1 Poster Presentation: ** An important aspect of research is to learn how to clearly convey the impact of your work. By creating this poster Sophie will learn how to do just that. This poster will be made so that we are prepared for any future conference opportunities.
Timeline: The Technical Presentation should be prepared over the course of the semester with the final presentation being made towards the end of this semester or early in the next. The poster should take 1-2 weeks of additional time after the technical presentations.
Phase 2 - Demonstration and Development of Simulation Surrogacy Tool
Description: The Molten Salt Thermochemical Database has a large amount of data for a fair selection of important chemicals. However, the database is not entirely complete and there remain some chemicals which are not represented. To overcome this challenge we intend to group chemically similar elements and represent them in the simulation with a single "simulation surrogate". We will develop and eventually publish a method for these groupings which will reduce the error introduced to the simulation. In this phase, Sophie will be responsible for testing the limitations of various grouping methodologies and helping determine the optimal system.
Deliverables:
- Technical Presentations (10 min): Sophie will prepare brief presentations highlighting her work on each methodology she works with.
- Conference Presentation or Journal Paper: Once we have optimized our Methodology we plan to present the work either in a conference or journal. The specific conference or journal will be dependent on the uniqueness and value of our work.
Timeline: This Phase will begin with the completion of Phase 1 (Sometime around the beginning of the next semester).
Note: At this point it is hard to say where the research will have taken us. Near the end of Phase 2, we will have a more complete picture of where we need to go. For now, I share two possibilities for Phase 3.
Phase 3a - Demonstration of 1-D Metal-Salt Model for the MIT Loop
Description: Once a 1-D Model of the MIT Salt chemistry has been constructed, Sophie may be responsible for performing a variety of simulations with the model to determine its limitations.
Deliverables: TBD
Phase 3b - Integration of OpenMC and/or SCALE with the Simulation Surrogacy Tool for the simulation of Real-time Redox Control for a Molten Salt Reactor
Description: One of the unique aspects of Loc's work was his use of SCALE's depletion capabilities to simulate the condition of a fuel salt at various points throughout its use. In this phase, Sophie will learn to integrate either SCALE or OpenMC with the Simulation Surrogacy tool and then explore possible redox control methods for an MSRR-like system.
Deliverables: TBD