Thermophysical Properties of Molten FLiNaK: a Moment Tensor Potential Approach

Fluoride salts demonstrate significant potential for applications in next-generation nuclear reactors, necessitating a comprehensive understanding of their thermophysical properties for technological advancements. Experimental measurement of these properties poses challenges, due to factors such as high temperatures, impurity control, and corrosion. Consequently, precise computational modeling methods become essential for predicting the thermophysical properties of molten salts. In this work, we performed molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of several thermophysical properties of the eutectic salt mixture LiF-NaF-KF (FLiNaK) melt, including density, self-diffusion coefficients, viscosity, and thermal conductivity. We demonstrated the successful application of moment tensor potentials (MTP) as an accurate model for interatomic interactions in FLiNaK. Our results on thermophysical properties calculations exhibit strong agreement with experimental data. An important aspect of our methodology is the incorporation of an active learning scheme, which enables the generation of a robust and accurate potential, while maintaining a moderate-sized training dataset.