Theses and Dissertations Collection

The concept of Small Modular Mobile Reactors (SMMR) has been around since thebeginning of the atomic age. In remote locations, electrical power and heat provided byconventional power systems require constant resupply of bulky fuel such as coal or diesel.These shipments often constitute the major expense of keeping a remote location operational.A small nuclear reactor eliminates the need for these shipments.However, the intense radiological source term at the end of life associated with all nuclearreactors makes mobility challenging, and makes decontamination and decommissioning veryexpensive, difficult, and time consuming. As a result, the deployment of these reactors hasbeen very limited, and many of the experimental SMMRs constructed in the 1950s and 1960shave yet to be decommissioned.For SMMRs to be practical, they must be capable of being moved relatively easily andquickly, and when they reach the end of use, they must be able to be disposed of quickly.This thesis will present a transportation and disposal analysis of an SMMR referred to asthe Molten Salt Nuclear Battery (MSnB), based on natural circulation of a molten fluoridesalt (FLiNaK), operating at 400 kW thermal for a period of 10 years. Further, it will presentthe design changes necessary to allow the reactor to be recovered from the deploymentlocation within weeks of reactor shutdown, using only over-the-road and currently availabletransportation equipment, transport the spent fuel to a location for either reprocessing orlong term storage, and dispose of all other reactor components immediately as low levelwaste.