The elevated temperatures and corrosive environment typical of molten salt reactors’ operating conditions may pose challenges to flow and temperature measurements. Experimental measurements of these thermal–hydraulic parameters are paramount to advance the knowledge and understanding of the molten salts’ behavior, and are necessary for the validation of system-level and computational fluid dynamics codes. An experimental test facility has been utilized to characterize the thermal–hydraulic behavior of typical molten salts under steady-state and transient, forced flow conditions, by employing innovative measurement methods. The use of the non-intrusive ultrasonic technology has been successfully deployed and validated within a wide range of flow conditions, at elevated temperatures (600 °C). Two-dimensional salt temperature fields have been reconstructed from the reading of a fine network of optical fiber distributed temperature sensors and thermocouple probes, providing information on the salt front transition velocity. The results obtained can be used to validate and advance specialized simulation codes.

熔融盐反应堆运行条件中典型的高温和腐蚀性环境可能会对流量和温度测量提出挑战。这些热工液压参数的实验测量对于提高对熔盐行为的认识和理解是至关重要的，并且对于验证系统级和计算流体动力学代码而言是必不可少的。通过采用创新的测量方法，实验测试设备已被用于表征典型熔融盐在稳态和瞬态强迫流动条件下的热-水行为。非侵入式超声技术的使用已成功地在高温（600°C）的各种流动条件下进行了部署和验证。通过读取光纤分布温度传感器和热电偶探针的精细网络，可以重建二维盐温度场，从而提供有关盐前沿转变速度的信息。获得的结果可用于验证和推进专用仿真代码。