OpenFOAM-Based Benchmarking Simulations of Xe Gas Behavior in Molten Lead for Advanced Fast Reactors

Abstract In the process of researching fast reactors that use molten lead as a cooling fluid, we realized that none of the projects deals with the problem of the creation of radioactive gas from the core. In further research, we realized that no one deals with this problem either experimentally or using computer simulations, and this paper attempts to deal with this issue by defining a benchmark study that could be used in the future to evaluate any potential simulations that would simulate Xe as a gas in the molten lead. We used OpenFOAM in which we defined radioactive decay in the transport equation and incorporated it into the new solver reactorFoam. We tested our methodology with known cases with water and air. We also investigated results from the commercial software COMSOL Multiphysics, and we have compared these results with results obtained with OpenFOAM. After the methodology has been established and confirmed, the change of parameters was introduced to Xe and molten lead. In this paper, we present the first results of this type, and we believe that due to the difficulty of performing such an experiment, this simulation is a potential candidate for a benchmark study between Xe and molten lead.