Publications

Journal Papers

• Numerical Investigation of Butterfly Valve Performance in Variable Valve Sizes, Positions and Flow Regimes

Anutam Bairagi, Mingfu He, and Minghui Chen

Journal of Nuclear Engineering, April 2024

• Semi-two-dimensional Transient Modeling of Decay Heat Removal to an External Reactor Cavity Cooling System for a gFHR with Effects of Heat Generation Pattern

Khaled Talaat and Minghui Chen

Nuclear Engineering and Design, April 2024

• Cover Gas Selection Considerations for Molten Salt Systems

Adam Burak and Minghui Chen

Progress in Nuclear Energy, April 2024

• Design and Optimization of Molten Salt Printed Circuit Steam Generators

Mingfu He, Khaled Talaat, and Minghui Chen

Applied Thermal Engineering, February 2024

• Design and Analysis of a Free-Piston Stirling Engine for Microreactor Applications

Phat Doan and Minghui Chen

Journal of Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Science, 2023 

• An Improved Heat Flux Partitioning Model of Nucleate Boiling Under Saturated Pool Boiling Condition

Mingfu He and Minghui Chen

Journal of Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Science, 2023

• Molten Salt Pump Journal-Bearings Dynamic Characteristics Under Hydrodynamic Lubrication Conditions

Yuqi Liu, Minghui Chen, Shuai Che, and Adam Burak

Journal of Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Science, 2023

• Steady-State and Power Transient Critical Heat Flux Experiments of FeCrAl and Zircaloy Claddings under Saturated Pool Boiling

Mingfu He and Minghui Chen

Nuclear Engineering and Design, August 2023

• Design of a Prototypical Natural Circulation Water-Based Reactor Cavity Cooling System (RCCS) for a Pebble-Bed Generic FHR

Khaled Talaat and Minghui Chen

Nuclear Engineering and Design, June 2023

• Experimental Investigation of Power Transient Flow Boiling

Mingfu He, Minghui Chen, Ezekiel Villarreal, Heng Ban, Raul B. Rebak

Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science, February 2023

• Steady-State Pool Boiling Heat Transfer Experimental Studies of Horizontally-Placed Tubes

Mingfu He, Amir F. Ali, Minghui Chen

International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, July 2022

• Numerical Investigations of Molten Salt Pump Journal Bearings Under Hydrodynamic Lubrication Conditions for FHRs

Yuqi Liu, Shuai Che, Adam Burak, Daniel L. Barth, Nicolas Zweibaum, and Minghui Chen

Nuclear Science and Engineering, July 2022

• Experimental Investigation of Critical Heat Flux Re-Occurrence on Post-CHF Surfaces

Mingfu He, Amir Ali, and Minghui Chen 

Progress in Nuclear Energy, March 2022

• Recent Progresses on Thermal-Hydraulics Evaluations of Accident Tolerant Fuel Cladding Materials

Mingfu He, Jun Wang, and Minghui Chen 

Annals of Nuclear Energy, 161, October 2021

• Boiling Heat Transfer Experiments under Power Transients for LWRs: A Review Study

Mingfu He, Ezekiel Villarreal, Heng Ban, and Minghui Chen

Progress in Nuclear Energy, 141, August 2021

• Thermal-Hydraulic Performance of Printed Circuit Heat Exchangers with Zigzag Flow Channels

Minghui Chen, Xiaodong Sun, and Richard N. Christensen

International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, 130, 356-367, March 2019

• Dynamic Behavior of a High-Temperature Printed Circuit Heat Exchanger: Numerical Modeling and Experimental Investigation

Minghui Chen, Xiaodong Sun, Richard N. Christensen, Isaac Skavdahl, Vivek Utgikar, and Piyush Sabharwall

Applied Thermal Engineering, 135, pp. 246-256, February 2018

• Development and Validation of Nusselt Number and Friction Factor Correlations for Laminar Flow in Semi-Circular Zigzag Channel of Printed Circuit Heat Exchanger

Su-Jong Yoon, James O’Brien, Minghui Chen, Piyush Sabharwall, and Xiaodong Sun

Applied Thermal Engineering, 123, pp. 1327-1344, August 2017

• Control of Advanced Reactor-Coupled Heat Exchangers System: Incorporation of Reactor Dynamics in System Response to Load Disturbances

Isaac Skavdahl, Vivek Utgikar, Richard Christensen, Minghui Chen, Xiaodong Sun, and Piyush Sabharwall

Nuclear Engineering and Technology, 48, pp. 1349-1359, December 2016

• Pressure Drop and Heat Transfer Characteristics of a High-Temperature Printed Circuit Heat Exchanger

Minghui Chen, Xiaodong Sun, Richard N. Christensen, Isaac Skavdahl, Vivek Utgikar, and Piyush Sabharwall

Applied Thermal Engineering, 108, pp. 1409-1417, July 2016

• Experimental and Numerical Study of a Printed Circuit Heat Exchanger

Minghui Chen, Xiaodong Sun, Richard N. Christensen, Shanbin Shi, Isaac Skavdahl, Vivek Utgikar, and Piyush Sabharwall

Annals of Nuclear Energy, 97, pp. 221-231, July 2016

• Modeling and Simulation of Control System Response to Temperature Disturbances in a Coupled Heat Exchangers-AHTR System

Isaac Skavdahl, Vivek P. Utgikar, Richard Christensen, Piyush Sabharwall, Minghui Chen, and Xiaodong Sun

Nuclear Engineering and Design, 300, pp. 161-172, April 2016

• Transient Analysis of an FHR Coupled to a Helium Brayton Power Cycle

Minghui Chen, In Hun Kim, Xiaodong Sun, Richard N. Christensen, Vivek Utgikar, and Piyush Sabharwall

Progress in Nuclear Energy, 83, pp. 283-293, August 2015

• Comparative Analysis of Compact Heat Exchangers for Application as the Intermediate Heat Exchanger for Advanced Nuclear Reactors

Nathan Bartel, Minghui Chen, Vivek P. Utgikar, Xiaodong Sun, In Hun Kim, Richard Christensen, and Piyush Sabharwall

Annals of Nuclear Energy, 81, pp. 143-149, July 2015.

Conference Papers

• A Performance and Scalability Analysis of the Hydrodynamic Molten Salt Lubricated Bearings

Yuqi Liu, Shuai Che, Adam Burak, Bao Nguyen, and Minghui Chen

2024 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants (ICAPP), Wednesday, June 16-19, 2024, Las Vegas, NV.  

• Design and Optimization of a Reactor Cavity Cooling System for a Prototypical gFHR 

Khaled Talaat and Minghui Chen

20th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics (NURETH-20), August 20-25, 2023, Washington, D.C. 

• Modeling and Optimization of Free-Piston Stirling Engine Generators for Microreactor Applications Using SAGE Software 

Phat Doan and Minghui Chen

20th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics (NURETH-20), August 20-25, 2023, Washington, D.C. 

• Steady-State and Power Transient Critical Heat Flux Experiments of FeCrAl and Zircaloy Claddings under Saturated Pool Boiling

Mingfu He and Minghui Chen

20th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics (NURETH-20), August 20-25, 2023, Washington, D.C. 

• Experimental Investigations of Material-Conjugated Subcooled Flow Boiling

Mingfu He and Minghui Chen 

20th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics (NURETH-20), August 20-25, 2023, Washington, D.C. 

• Design and Construction of an Integral-Effect Test Facility FLUSTFA for Molten Salt Reactor Applications 

Sheng Zhang, Hsun-Chia Lin, Minghui Chen, Shanbin Shi, Shuai Che, Adam Burak, and Xiaodong Sun

20th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics (NURETH-20), August 20-25, 2023, Washington, D.C. 

• Design of a High-Temperature Shaft Seal Test Facility for Molten Salt Pumps 

Shuai Che, Adam Burak, Xiaodong Sun, Yuqi Liu, Minghui Chen

20th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics (NURETH-20), August 20-25, 2023, Washington, D.C.

• Cover Gas Selection for Molten Salts 

Adam Burak and Minghui Chen

TMS 152nd Annual Meeting, March 19 – 23, 2023, San Diego, CA. 

• Transient Analysis of an FHR Coupled with a Helium Brayton Cycle

Guolei Zhang, Minghui Chen, Xiaodong Sun

18th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics (NURETH-18), August 18-23, 2019, Portland, OR.

• Numerical Investigation of Thermal Boundary Conditions of a High-Temperature PCHE with Zigzag Flow Channels

Minghui Chen, Xiaodong Sun, and Richard N. Christensen

Proceedings of 2018 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants (ICAPP’18), April 8-11, 2018, Charlotte, NC.

• Multi-Objective Optimization of a Printed Circuit Heat Exchanger

Limin Wang, Minghui Chen, Shanbin Shi, Xiaodong Sun, Richard N. Christensen, and Defu Che

Proceedings of 17th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics (NURETH-17), September 3-8, 2017, Xi’an, China.

• Thermal-Hydraulic Performance of a High-Temperature Zigzag-Channel Printed Circuit Heat Exchanger

Minghui Chen, James E. O’Brien, Su-Jong Yoon, Richard N. Christensen, Piyush Sabharwall, and Xiaodong Sun

Proceedings of 8th International Topical Meeting on High Temperature Reactor Technology 2016 (HTR2016), November 6-10, 2016, Las Vegas, NV.

• Design and Testing of Helically-Coiled Fluted Tube Heat Exchangers for FHR Applications

Minghui Chen, Xiaodong Sun, Richard N. Christensen, Shanbin Shi, Isaac Skavdahl, Vivek Utgikar, and Piyush Sabharwall

Proceedings of 11th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics, Operation and Safety (NUTHOS-11), October 9-13, 2016, Gyeongju, South Korea.

• Design and Dynamic Modeling of a Printed Circuit Heat Exchanger for the Next Generation Nuclear Plant

Minghui Chen, Shanbin Shi, Xiaodong Sun, Richard N. Christensen, Isaac Skavdahl, Vivek Utgikar, and Piyush Sabharwall 

Proceeding of the International Topical Meeting on Advances in Thermal Hydraulics 2016 (ATH’16), June 12-16, 2016, New Orleans, LA.

• Fabrication and Testing of a High-Temperature Printed Circuit Heat Exchanger

Minghui Chen, Xiaodong Sun, Richard N. Christensen, Isaac Skavdahl, Vivek Utgikar, and Piyush Sabharwall

Proceedings of the 16th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics (NURETH-16), August 30 - September 4, 2015, Chicago, IL.

• Design of Fluidic Diode for a High-temperature DRACS Test Facility

Qiuping Lv, Minghui Chen, Xiaodong Sun, Richard Christensen, Thomas Blue, Graydon Yoder, Dane Wilson, and Piyush Sabharwall

Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Nuclear Engineering (ICONE21), July 29-August 2, 2013, Chengdu, China.

Transactions

• Preliminary Design and Analysis of Free-Piston Stirling Engines

Phat D. Doan and Minghui Chen

Transactions of the American Nuclear Society Meeting, 126, June 12 – 16, 2022, Anaheim, CA.

• Design of a High-Temperature Molten-Salt Pump Bearing Test Facility

Yuqi Liu, Daniel L. Barth, Adam Burak, Shuai Che, Minghui Chen

Transactions of the American Nuclear Society Meeting, 126, June 12 – 16, 2022, Anaheim, CA.

• Numerical Investigations on Hydrodynamic Molten Salt Lubricated Bearings

Yuqi Liu, Daniel L. Barth, Adam Burak, Shuai Che, Minghui Chen

Transactions of the American Nuclear Society Meeting, 126, June 12 – 16, 2022, Anaheim, CA.

• Analysis of High Nickel Alloys Partially Submerged in a Ternary Chloride Salt

Aaron Overacker, Kenneth Armijo, Dimitri Madden, Patrick Burton, Minghui Chen

Transactions of the American Nuclear Society Meeting, 126, June 12 – 16, 2022, Anaheim, CA.

• A Comparative Study of FeCrAl and Zircaloy Claddings for Steady-State Subcooled Flow Boiling Experiments

Mingfu He and Minghui Chen

Transactions of the American Nuclear Society Meeting, 125, November 30 – December 4, 2021.

• Preliminary Analysis of Journal Bearings for Molten Salt Pumps

Yuqi Liu and Minghui Chen

Transactions of the American Nuclear Society Meeting, 125, November 30 – December 4, 2021. 

• Modelling Assessments of Water Pool Boiling Critical Heat Flux Experiments Under Power Transients

Mingfu He and Minghui Chen

Transactions of the American Nuclear Society Virtual Meeting, 123, pp. 1515-1518, November 16 – 19, 2020.

• A Thermal-Mechanical Properties View of Impacts of Heater Materials on Critical Heat Flux

Mingfu He, Soon K. Lee, Amir Ali, and Minghui Chen

Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, 121, pp. 1835-1838, November 17 – 21, 2019, Washington, DC.

• Corrosion Behavior of Stainless Steel 316H in LiF-NaF-KF (FLiNaK) at High Temperatures

Sheng Zhang, Minghui Chen, Shanbin Shi, Xiaodong Sun, and Richard N. Christensen

Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, 117, October 29 – November 2, 2017, Washington, DC.

• Helium Brayton Cycle Design for Advanced High Temperature Reactor System

Isaac Skavdahl, Vivek Utgikar, Richard N. Christensen, Piyush Sabharwall, Minghui Chen, and Xiaodong Sun

Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, 115, pp. 947-950, November 6 – 10, 2016, Las Vegas, NV.

• Simulation of Advanced High Temperature Reactor Control System using MATLAB

Isaac Skavdahl, Vivek Utgikar, Piyush Sabharwall, Minghui Chen, Xiaodong Sun, and Richard N. Christensen

Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, 113, pp. 421-424, November 8 – 12, 2015, Washington, DC.

• Control Strategy Development of Advanced High Temperature Reactor System

Isaac Skavdahl, Vivek Utgikar, Piyush Sabharwall, Minghui Chen, Xiaodong Sun, and Richard N.  Christensen

Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, 112, pp. 223-230, June 7 – 11, 2015, San Antonio, TX.

• Transient Analysis of Advanced High Temperature Reactors Using Process Simulation Software

Isaac Skavdahl, Vivek Utgikar, Piyush Sabharwall, Minghui Chen, In Hun Kim, Xiaodong Sun, and Richard N. Christensen

Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, 111, pp. 1087-1089, November 9 – 13, 2014, Anaheim, CA.

• Preliminary Design of a Helical Coil Heat Exchanger for a Fluoride Salt-Cooled High-Temperature Test Reactor

Minghui Chen, In Hun Kim, Xiaodong Sun, Richard N. Christensen, Isaac Skavdahl, Vivek Utgikar, and Piyush Sabharwall

Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, 111, pp. 1460-1463, November 9 – 13, 2014, Anaheim, CA.

• Transient Model of Wavy-Channel Printed Circuit Heat Exchangers

Nathan Bartel, Vivek Utgikar, Piyush Sabharwall, Minghui Chen, Xiaodong Sun, Richard N. Christensen, and In Hun Kim

Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, 109, pp. 291-294, November 10 – 14, 2013, Washington, DC.

• Dynamic Response Analysis of a Scaled-Down Offset Strip-Fin Intermediate Heat Exchanger

Minghui Chen, In Hun Kim, Xiaodong Sun, Richard N. Christensen, Nathan Bartel, Vivek Utgikar, and Piyush Sabharwall

Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, 109, pp. 270-273, November 10 – 14, 2013, Washington, DC.

• Thermal-Hydraulic Design of Wavy-Channel Printed Circuit Heat Exchanger for Advanced Reactors

Nathan Bartel, Vivek Utgikar, Piyush Sabharwall, Minghui Chen, Xiaodong Sun, Richard N. Christensen, and In Hun Kim

Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, 108, pp. 1086-1089, June 16 – 20, 2013, Atlanta, GA.

• Design of Printed Circuit Heat Exchanger for Very High Temperature Reactors

Minghui Chen, In Hun Kim, Xiaodong Sun, Richard N. Christensen, Nathan Bartel, Vivek Utgikar, and Piyush Sabharwall 

Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, 108, pp. 1090-1093, June 16 – 20, 2013, Atlanta, GA.

Technical Reports

• Power Transient and Steady-State Pool/Flow Boiling Experimental Studies of Accident-Tolerant-Fuel Cladding Materials

Minghui Chen, Mingfu He, and Anil Prinja

NEUP 16-10905, Final Technical Report, Volume 4, December 2021.

• Bimetallic Composite (Incoloy 800H/Ni-201) Development and Compatibility in Flowing FLiBe as a Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) Structural Material

Minghui Chen, Michael P Short, Govindarajan Muralidharan, and Anil Prinja

NEUP 17-13020, Final Technical Report, December 2021.

• An Experimental and Analytical Investigation into Critical Heat Flux (CHF) Implications for Accident Tolerant Fuel (ATF) Concepts

Minghui Chen, Nicholas R. Brown, Wade Marcum, et al.

NEUP 17-12688, Final Technical Report, March 2021.