Development of Design and Verification Platform for Heat Pipe Cooled Nuclear Reactor

Abstract

Heat pipe cooled reactor is one of the most popular types of reactor for power users who need high-density and reliable energy source because of its exclusive properties such as compacted structure, flexible layout and “none-liquid coolant”. In the design and selection of micro or small marine nuclear power system, especially the 100-kw marine nuclear power system, heat pipe reactor can perfectly meet the requirements of high power density and strict volume and weight constraints [1]. However, since there is a lack of domestic and foreign mature design technical specification systems and typical mature models or prototype for reference, it’s hard to design the full-scope proto of this type of nuclear reactor [2]. This paper introduces a nuclear power reactor design verification platform developed based on simulation platform that can support the simulation of full scope of marine heat pipe reactor. Through the integration of system-level design and analysis codes, coupling simulation of multiple systems models, automatic generation of models of heat pipe as well as fuel arrangement matrix and radial heat transfer calculation, the platform implements a method not only for the rapid full-scope heat pipe nuclear reactor system modeling establishment but also for the real-time calculation of the steady-state or transient simulation, which lays a numerical calculation foundation for the design and verification of heat pipe nuclear reactor system.