Abstract
Underwater Vehicle is designed to ensure the security of country sea boundary, providing harsh requirements for its power system design. Conventional power sources, such as battery and Stirling engine, are featured with low power and short lifetime. Micro nuclear reactor power source featured with higher power density and longer lifetime would strongly meet the demands of unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) power system. In this paper, a 2.4MWt lithium heat pipe cooled reactor coreis designed for micro nuclear power source, which can be applied for underwater vehicles. The core features with small volume, high power density, long lifetime, and low noise level. Uranium nitride fuel with 70% enrichment and lithium heat pipes are adopted in the core. The reactivity is controlled by 6 control drums with B4C neutron absorber. Monte Carlo code MCNP is used for calculating the power distribution, characteristics of reactivity feedback and core criticality safety. A code MCORE coupling MCNP5 and ORIGEN2 is used to analysis the burnup characteristics of the designed core. The results show that the core life is 14 years, and the core parameters satisfy the safety requirements. This work provides reference to the design and application of the micro nuclear power source.
Highlights
Nuclear power source can be used in the power systems of underwater vehicle
Considering the reactor mass and volume, criticality safety, reliability, and maneuverability, heat pipe cooled fast reactor power source featured with compact structure, less movable parts, high reliability, and low noise level could be widely used in the power system of unmanned underwater vehicle in the future (Rowe, 1991)
MSR (Bushman et al, 2004) is another micro heat pipe cooled reactor power source featured with electric power for the scale of 100 kilowatts, lithium heat pipe, and thermoelectric generator, Core Design for a Micronuclear Power Source thermal power of 1.2 MWt, and efficiency of more than 10%
Summary
Nuclear power source can be used in the power systems of underwater vehicle. The future unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) is designed as a multipurpose equipment (Navy, 2004). Considering the reactor mass and volume, criticality safety, reliability, and maneuverability, heat pipe cooled fast reactor power source featured with compact structure, less movable parts, high reliability, and low noise level could be widely used in the power system of unmanned underwater vehicle in the future (Rowe, 1991). Based on a literature review, a micro heat pipe cooled nuclear reactor power source applied for underwater vehicle featured with 2.4 MWt power output and a lifetime of more than 10 years is designed. Lithium heat pipe cooled core, six control drums, tungsten, and an open water loop shield are adopted in this power source. The nuclear reactor power source consists of the following parts: core, control drums, shield, heat pipes, and thermoelectric generator. Thermoelectric generator is used to convert heat conducted from heat pipes into electricity of 120 kWe
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