Abstract
The heat pipe cooled thermionic reactor (HPTI) relies on in‐core sodium heat pipes to provide a redundant means of cooling the 72 thermionic fuel elements (TFEs) and 36 driver fuel pins which comprise the 40 kWe core assembly. In‐core heat pipe cooling was selected for the reactor design to meet the requirements for a system design with the potential to achieve a high survivability level against natural and man‐made threats and one that possesses no‐mission ending single point failures. A detailed study was performed to determine the potential in‐core heat pipe geometries which could be developed for an HPTI concept. Requirements and performance estimates were developed for two in‐core heat pipe geometries. Both nominal and faulted operating conditions were evaluated using a two‐dimensional thermal model of the core to assess TFE and driver fuel pin temperature profiles. A bow tie in‐core heat pipe geometry was selected as the optimum design using a HPTI honeycomb core structure.
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