Steady state performance of molten salt natural circulation loop with different orientations of heater and cooler

•A Modified Molten Salt Natural Circulation Loop (MSNCL) has been setup.•Various steady state and transient experiments have been carried out in the loop for different orientations of heater and cooler.•Natural circulation steady state correlations have been compared with the experimental data.•New model has been developed to study the steady state behavior of MSNCL.•New steady state correlation has been developed for vertical heater orientation.