Preliminary conceptual design and neutroncis analysis of a heat pipe cooled traveling wave reactor

Abstract

The heat pipe cooled nuclear reactor is becoming a suitable choice compared to conventional power sources in decentralized electricity markets. In this paper, a 65.5 MWth heat pipe cooled traveling wave reactor (HPTWR) design is proposed. The concept design uses neutron traveling wave to improve the continuous operation time and reduce the enrichment of loaded fuel comparing to the currently existing heat pipe reactor designs. The Monte Carlo code RMC is used to obtain the propagation of axial power peak, reactivity swing, burnup and the inventories of bred fissile nuclides for the HPTWR core. The study shows that the HPTWR design with 14% enrichment of ignition fuel and 8.5% enrichment of breeding fuel can operate for 59 years without refueling, which meets the requirements of the low enrichment of loaded fuel, high power output, and long-term continuous operation for the power supply of decentralized electricity markets as a superior choice.