Improvement and Validation of the System Analysis Model and Code for Heat-Pipe-Cooled Microreactor

Abstract

Heat-pipe-cooled microreactors (HPMR) use a passive high-temperature alkali metal heat pipe to directly transfer the heat of solid core to the hot end of the intermediate heat exchanger or thermoelectric conversion device, thus avoiding a single point failure. To analyze and evaluate the transient safety characteristics of an HPMR system under accident conditions, such as heat pipe failure in the core or a loss of system heat sink and other accidents, a previously developed model for transient analysis of a heat-pipe-cooled space nuclear reactor power system (HPSR) was improved and validated in this study. The models improved mainly comprise: (1) An entire 2-D solid-core heat transfer model is established to analyze the accident conditions of core heat pipe failure and system heat sink loss. In this model, radial and axial Fourier heat conduction equations are used to divide the core into r-θ direction control volumes. The physical parameters of the material in the control volume are calculated according to the volume-weighted average. (2) By coupling the heat transfer limit model and the two-dimensional thermal resistance network model, the transient model of a heat pipe for HPMR system analysis is improved. (3) Conversion system models are established to simulate the system characteristics of the advanced HPMR concept, such as thermoelectric conversion, Stirling conversion, and the open Brayton conversion analysis model. Based on the improved models, the HPMR system analysis program TAPIRSD was developed, which was verified by experimental data of the separated conversion components and the ground nuclear test device KRUSTY. The maximum deviation of the power output predicted by the energy conversion model is less than 8%. The accident conditions of the KRUSTY tests, such as load change, core heat pipe failure, and heat sink loss accident, were studied by using TAPIRSD. The results show that the simulation results of the TAPIRSD code agree well with the experimental data of the KRUSTY prototype reactor. The maximum error between the TAPIRSD code prediction and the measured value of the core temperature under accident conditions is less than 10 K, and the maximum deviation is less than 2%. The results show that the developed code can predict the transient response process of the HPMR system well. At the same time, the accuracy and reliability of the improved model are proved. The TAPIRSD is suitable for system transient analysis of different types of HPMRs and provides an optional tool for the system safety characteristics analysis of HPMR.