Yes, it's called "annealing". Basically, the core is de-fueled and a huge electric resistive heater is put inside it. Then the entire vessel is heated to something like 600C, and kept there for several days.
It helps the atoms displaced by neutron collisions to "snap back" into the correct places in the crystalline structure. But it can never restore the material completely, and over time the annealing breaks will have to be more and more frequent.
It also can't be used for everything. Some pipes will experience large thermal stresses if annealed, and some components can't be heated properly due to complex geometry.
As with everything in engineering, all problems can be solved with additional complexity. It's possible to design LFTR reactors to be more annealable, but it will likely make them impractically complex.
There are also other issues with LFTRs. A significant part of the energy production will happen _inside_ the pipework carrying the molten salt, as delayed fission happens and daughter products decay. This will cause inevitable problems with the reactor power control.
Modern light water reactors are engineering marvels. They are incredibly compact for the amount of power that they generate, and they are now designed with the anticipated 70-100 year operating lifetime. Getting LFTRs to the same level of maturity might be possible, but it'll require literally hundreds of billions (if not trillions) invested, just like with the classic nuclear.
You are describing "dry" annealing there. This has not been applied anywhere, as it requires removing and reinstalling the internal support structures inside the reactor vessel.
A somewhat lower temperature "wet" annealing process has been applied to two test reactors. I don't think it's been applied to any full scale power reactors.
It helps the atoms displaced by neutron collisions to "snap back" into the correct places in the crystalline structure. But it can never restore the material completely, and over time the annealing breaks will have to be more and more frequent.
It also can't be used for everything. Some pipes will experience large thermal stresses if annealed, and some components can't be heated properly due to complex geometry.
As with everything in engineering, all problems can be solved with additional complexity. It's possible to design LFTR reactors to be more annealable, but it will likely make them impractically complex.
There are also other issues with LFTRs. A significant part of the energy production will happen _inside_ the pipework carrying the molten salt, as delayed fission happens and daughter products decay. This will cause inevitable problems with the reactor power control.
Modern light water reactors are engineering marvels. They are incredibly compact for the amount of power that they generate, and they are now designed with the anticipated 70-100 year operating lifetime. Getting LFTRs to the same level of maturity might be possible, but it'll require literally hundreds of billions (if not trillions) invested, just like with the classic nuclear.