Thermal-hydraulic analysis of heat pipe reactor experimental device with thermoelectric generators

Abstract

Heat pipe reactor relies on heat pipes to transfer the fission energy generated in the core to the secondary loop or thermoelectric conversion system. In our group's design, thermoelectric generators (TEGs) are selected to convert fission energy to electricity. In this paper, we established a heat pipe reactor experimental device with TEGs. To verify the heat transfer performance of the heat pipes and the thermoelectric conversion efficiency of TEGs, steady-state experiments were carried out. The minimum temperature drop between the evaporator and condenser sections of heat pipes can reach 6.4 °C. The maximum output power of TEGs can go 74.4 W. The thermoelectric conversion efficiency is about 8.0%. The Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) method is used to simulate the steady-state operation of the experimental device. After comparing the simulation results with the experimental data, the temperature error of the heat pipes is less than 26.8 °C, and the temperature error of the TEGs is less than 17.3 °C. A CFD simulation method for heat pipe reactor steady-state operation is presented based on the verification and validation.