Multiphysics, Multiscale, and Multi-Domain Simulations and Experiments for Liquid Nuclear Fuels

Liquid nuclear fuels, such as molten salts, liquid metals, and aqueous solutions, are key to the development of next-generation reactors, due to their inherent safety features, enhanced fuel utilization, and adaptability in reprocessing. The operation of these fuels involves complex and interconnected phenomena across multiple physics, scales, and domains. These include neutronics, thermal-hydraulics, chemistry, and materials that interact from atomic and molecular levels through to full reactor dynamics. Conventional single-physics or single-scale approaches struggle to capture the intricate couplings in liquid-fueled nuclear systems, leading to inaccuracies in design, safety assessment, and optimization. This highlights the pressing need for integrated simulation and experimental methodologies that can navigate these multifaceted challenges to fully harness the potential of liquid nuclear fuels for sustainable energy.

This Research Topic explores multiphysics, multiscale, and multi-domain simulations and experiments for liquid nuclear fuels. The Topic aims to bridge existing gaps in research and foster the development and implementation of integrated multiphysics and multiscale approaches to accelerate liquid-fueled reactor development.

The scope of this Research Topic encompasses advanced simulation tools that effectively couple diverse physical processes, multiscale frameworks that seamlessly merge micro and macro dynamics, machine learning and other artificial intelligence tools to refine models, and validating these simulations through state-of-the-art experiments.

Contributions should address fundamental issues, offer solutions to real problems, or advance the understanding of liquid fuel systems to support nuclear reactor design and safety. Articles should not present trivial simulations of novel reactors and should instead present meaningful advances in system behavior. We welcome reviews that synthesize current multi-domain challenges, along with methodological papers that highlight innovative coupling strategies and benchmark studies that compare different approaches.

Research areas within the scope of this collection include, but are not limited to:
• Multiphysics modeling, including neutronics, thermal-hydraulics, and chemistry
• Multiscale frameworks bridging atomic and molecular interactions to reactor-wide dynamics
• Experimental methods for validating coupled phenomena under extreme conditions
• Uncertainty quantification in cross-scale and cross-physics couplings
• Applications of machine learning for model optimization and data integration.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review

Keywords: liquid nuclear fuel, molten salts, liquid metals, aqueous fuels, multiphysics, multiscale, multi-domain, coupling strategies, reactor-wide dynamics, neutronics, thermal-hydraulics, model validation, simulation tools, liquid fuel systems

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.