Thermophysical Property Measurements: Improved Density, Viscosity and Thermal Diffusivity Methods

Abstract

The technical bases and methods developed at Argonne to measure thermophysical properties of molten salt mixtures are summarized and representative results provided to show the accuracy and precision achieved. Three key measurements addressed in this report are density, viscosity and thermal diffusivity. The densities of two eutectic FLiNaK mixtures were measured at temperatures to approximately 750 °C and the results are compared with literature values. The results are used to show how the effect of salt surface tension is taken into account in the density calculation and how the surface tension for other salt mixtures is being measured. Viscosity measurements of eutectic FLiNaK are shown to illustrate improvements to the measurement method being made to address and minimize the sources of error and uncertainties in the reported values. Thermal diffusivity measurements of FLiNaK are shown to illustrate the measurement method developed at Argonne and the achieved precision. The thermal diffusivity of the graphite used to make the cells that contain the salts during analyses was measured to assess the relative contribution to the response. The improved procedures developed in this work are being applied in property measurements of other salts of interest.