Design Of Microreactor Research Articles

Optimization of Fuel Enrichment and Reactor Core Pitch Dimension in Hydride Microreactor using NSGA-II Method and OpenMC Calculation

Abstract This study focuses on the design optimization of a hydride microreactor, aimed at supporting the equitable development of electricity in remote regions of Indonesia. Its compact design, inherent safety properties, and independence from the conventional electric grid make this microreactor concept suitable for electrifying even the most inaccessible areas. Current research investigates various aspects of the hydride microreactor design, employing a standard reactor core pitch dimension of 2.4 cm and fuel enrichment of 12%. It is crucial to operate the reactor using specific concentrations of Gadolinia burnable poison to enable a shutdown in the event of a stuck rod. By optimizing only the pitch dimension and fuel enrichment, the reactor can be simulated relatively quickly without the need for burnup calculations. Ideal configuration aims for lower enrichment, an extended fuel cycle, and a relatively low power peaking factor (PPF). The optimization process utilizes the Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm – II, with the neutron multiplication factor (keff) and PPF as primary objectives. Fuel cycle and feedback reactivity are the sub-objectives that are used to identify the optimal solution from the Pareto front. The calculation process of keff, PPF, fuel cycle, and feedback reactivity coefficients for specific pitch dimensions and fuel enrichment are done by utilizing the OpenMC Monte Carlo code. The optimal configuration is obtained through four generations of NSGA-II, featuring a reactor core pitch of 2.1 cm and fuel enrichment of 10.4%. This configuration yields a keff value of 1.0712049 and a PPF value of 2,0728 at the Beginning of Life (BOL). Remarkably, this configuration enables safe operation without using burnable poison for a continuous period of 12 years, generating 1 MW of thermal power. Emphasizing the reduction of fissile material is also essential to enhance the inherent safety of the reactor.

Measuring thermal diffusivity and gap conductance in uranium nitride and Zircaloy relevant for microreactor applications

Heat transfer across nuclear fuels and structural interfaces is an important factor for evaluating the performance of nuclear power systems. Specifically, heat generated as nuclear fuel fissions must be transported through the cladding material and through the reactor to reach the steam turbine for power generation. As new microreactor designs emerge, maximizing the efficiency of this heat transfer process becomes crucial to make them commercially viable. This article examines thermal diffusivity and gap conductance in uranium nitride (UN) fuel and Zircaloy-4 (Zry4) cladding using light flash analysis (LFA). Thermal diffusivity measurements were made on monolithic UN pellets and Zry4 exposed to carbon at peak operating temperatures of microreactors and show that carbon ingress has a minimal effect on thermal diffusivity when compared with identical materials not exposed to carbon. Evaluation of gap conductance at the UN-Zry4 interface was done using one-dimensional two-layer thermal transport models as a function of applied pressure. The results show that increasing pressure on the UN-Zry4 interface leads to gains in gap conductance per unit area in fuel-cladding assemblies at microreactor operating temperatures. While many other variables are expected to influence UN-Zry4 interfacial gap conductance (e.g. contact surface roughness, porosity, localized heating, environmental gas pressure), the work offers a demonstration of using a conventional LFA apparatus to determine this parameter at elevated temperatures.

Convection induced by centrifugal and Coriolis buoyancy in a rotating Hele-Shaw reactor

The study of heat and mass transfer in a Hele-Shaw cell rotating around a perpendicular axis has various advanced technological applications. These include the design of microfluidic devices and continuous-flow chemical microreactors, to name a couple. In this setup configuration, the quasi-two-dimensional design allows for recording the density field using optical methods, and the rotation enables control of this field through spatially distributed inertial forces. As is known, in the limit of an infinitely thin layer, the Coriolis force vanishes within a standard mathematical model. However, experimental observations of fluid flow in a rotating Hele-Shaw cell indicate the opposite. In this paper, we show that the correct derivation of the equation of motion under the Hele-Shaw approximation leads to the appearance of a Boussinesq-type term for the Coriolis force. To study the effect of the Coriolis buoyancy, we consider the problem of fluid stability during the internal generation of a transfer component, which can be either the concentration of the dissolved substance or the temperature of the medium. The careful study of system dynamics involves linear stability analysis, weakly nonlinear analysis, and direct numerical simulation. The general properties of the disturbance spectrum are analyzed. The branching of solutions near the first bifurcation is studied using the technique of multiple time scales. A stationary convection is replaced by an oscillatory one under the action of the Coriolis force, as demonstrated by weakly nonlinear analysis. Finally, we investigate the nonlinear dynamics using direct numerical simulation.

Analysis of zirconium hydride moderator effect on the micro lead-based reactor

As a crucial parameter for the design of micro reactors, the neutron spectrum directly impacts the keff, the critical size, burnup characteristics, reactivity temperature coefficients and so on. When considering the optimization of the reactor size, designs utilizing thermal neutron spectrum and fast neutron spectrum each present their unique advantages and challenges. To investigate the impact of energy spectrum on the reactor performance, a micro lead-based reactor with annular channel fuel elements is proposed and the study of the influence of varying the volume ratio of moderator and fuel (the M/F ratio) on the keff, the critical size, burnup characteristic and reactivity temperature coefficients by using the Reactor Monte Carlo code (RMC code) is conducted. The results show that for the micro lead-based reactor proposed, when the reactor energy output demand is greater than 350 MWt·years, the design with fast neutron spectrum (without moderator) exhibits the minimum size. While the reactor energy output demand is less than 350 MWt·years, the design with a thermal neutron spectrum (with moderator) achieves the minimum size. Moreover, to ensure the negative reactivity temperature effect, the M/F ratio should be maintained below 3.4. The insights presented in this paper will serve as valuable references for the design of the micro reactor.

Multimodal competition shapes enzymatic ATP hydrolysis: Deciphering microscale confinement by vibrational strong coupling

Confinement effect at microscale level is ubiquitous in biosystems and microreactors, but its mechanism remains debated. Herein we discovered that the multimode competition of molecular vibrational strong coupling (VSC) with optical resonators can well account for the confinement effects as reflected by the efficacy of enzymatic ATP hydrolysis. As O-H stretching vibration coupling with 6th cavity mode, the VSC effect on ATP hydrolysis shows significant enhancement, while VSC with higher cavity modes will gradually reduce such effect due to the multimodal competition. The higher the cavity mode coupled with, the closer to the outside of Fabry-Pérot cavity. Moreover, the underlying mechanism of VSC effect on ATP hydrolysis could be originated from the Rabi splitting of hydrogen bond landscape, mainly altering the binding affinity between Ca2+ and ATPase. This research deepens our understanding of the microscale confinement effect on reactions from the aspect of quantum mechanism, which can guide the rational design of microreactors.

Rational Design of Liquid-Liquid Microdispersion Droplet Microreactors for the Controllable Synthesis of Highly Uniform and Monodispersed Dextran Microspheres.

Hydrogel microspheres are biocompatible materials widely used in biological and medical fields. Emulsification and stirring are the commonly used methods to prepare hydrogels. However, the size distribution is considerably wide, the monodispersity and the mechanical intensity are poor, and the stable operation conditions are comparatively narrow to meet some sophisticated applications. In this paper, a T-shaped stepwise microchannel combined with a simple side microchannel structure is developed to explore the liquid-liquid dispersion mechanism, interfacial evolution behavior, satellite droplet formation mechanism and separation, and the eventual successful synthesis of dextran hydrogel microspheres. The effect of the operation parameters on droplet and microsphere size is comprehensively studied. The flow pattern and the stable operation condition range are given, and mathematical prediction models are developed under three different flow regimes for droplet size prediction. Based on the stable operating conditions, a microdroplet-based method combined with UV light curing is developed to synthesize the dextran hydrogel microsphere. The highly uniform and monodispersed dextran microspheres with good mechanical intensity are synthesized in the developed microfluidic platform. The size of the microsphere could be tuned from 50 to 300 μm with a capillary number in the range of 0.006-0.742. This work not only provides a facile method for functional polymeric microsphere preparation but also offers important design guidelines for the development of a robust microreactor.

Parametric Sensitivity Analysis of Stability Margins of Holos-Quad Microreactor

An analysis of the stability margins of the innovative Holos-Quad microreactor design is presented. This high-temeprature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR) system is designed to operate fully autonomously with passive safety mechanisms. Therefore, the inherent stability of the reactor is of great importance. Using a point-reactor model, which couples point kinetics to thermal-hydraulic heat balance equations and includes reactivity feedback effects of the fuel and moderator temperatures, the closed-loop transfer function of the reactor is derived. Applying the approach of linear systems and control theory, both the gain and phase margins of the Holos-Quad design are obtained. The analysis demonstrates that the design is stable, with an infinite gain margin and a finite phase margin. A parametric uncertainty quantification study is also performed using a total Monte Carlo approach. The stability of the reactor for different power levels, such as during reactor startup or load-following transients, is also explored. Finally, two sensitivity analysis methods are applied, namely, multiple regression (deriving standardized regression coefficients) and variance-based sensitivity analysis (known as the Sobol method), to study the contribution of each of the parameters to the stability margins’ uncertainty. This analysis improves our understanding of the role of each of the parameters in the stability of the reactor.

Wavy-attention network for real-time cyber-attack detection in a small modular pressurized water reactor digital control system

Global interest in advanced reactors has been reignited by recent investments in small modular reactors and micro-reactor design. The use of digital devices is essential for meeting the size and modularity requirements of small modular reactor controls. By fully digitizing the small modular reactor control systems, critical information can be obtained to optimize control, reduce costs, and extend the reactor’s lifetime. However, the potential for cyber-attacks on digital devices leaves digital control systems vulnerable. To address this risk, this study presents a novel wavy-attention network for sensor attack detection in nuclear plants. The wavy-attention network comprises stacks of batch-normalized, dilated, one-dimensional convolution neural networks, and sequential self-attention modules, superior to conventional single-layer networks on sequence classification tasks. To evaluate the proposed wavy-attention network architecture, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Asherah Nuclear Simulator and a false data injection toolbox found in the literature, both implemented in MATLAB/SIMULINK, are utilized. This approach leverages changes in process measurements to identify and classify cyber-attacks on priority signals using the proposed wavy-attention network. Three false data injection attacks are simulated on the simulator’s pressure, temperature, and level sensors to obtain representative process measurements. The wavy-attention network is trained and validated with normal and compromised process variables obtained from the simulator. The performance of the wavy-attention network to discriminate between the reactor states using the test set shows 99% accuracy, as opposed to other baseline models such as vanilla convolution neural networks, long short-term memory networks, and bi-directional long short-term memory networks with 90%, 77%, and 91% accuracy, respectively. An ablation study is also conducted to test the contribution of each component of the proposed architecture. The theoretical framework of the proposed wavy-attention network and its implementation for nuclear reactor digital sensor attack detection are discussed in this paper.

Insight into the synergistic effects of surface microstructures and wall peristalsis on glucose production in a bionic microreactor

The enzymatic hydrolysis stage is regarded as a key step in the production of biofuels derived from lignocellulosic biomass, but the elevated production expenses and limited conversion efficiency are still not favorable for practical applications. In this study, inspired by the efficient degradation of cellulose in the termite gut, a cellulase-loaded flexible microreactor model with bionic surface structures was first proposed for the production of fermentable glucose. In such a system, the fold-like structures can provide more enzyme loading sites, and villus-like structures can not only increase enzyme loading but also improve radial transfer in the microreactor. These two structures synergized well and resulted in a 58.5% increase in glucose production compared to the control. Applying peristalsis can further enhance mass transfer by the formation of backflow and vortex, and reducing the peristaltic period is more effective than increasing the peristaltic amplitude for glucose production enhancement. The glucose concentration obtained by the synergistic enhancement of peristalsis and surface structure was 2.3 times of the control. Moreover, for reactions with higher intrinsic reaction rates, the system is in a mass transfer-limited state and peristaltic enhancement is more effective. These results give insight into the design of the bionic flexible microreactor for efficient glucose production.

Creep Fatigue Analysis of the 316SS Monolith in the MegaPower Heat Pipe Reactor

The heat pipe reactor represents a promising high-temperature microreactor design comprising heat pipes, fuel rods, and monoliths. Prolonged operation at elevated temperatures leads to an obvious thermal creep and thermal stress within the monolith. The monolith may have structural failure due to creep damage and fatigue damage caused by temperature fatigue load. This paper presents an analysis of the creep fatigue damage in the monolith of the MegaPower heat pipe reactor using the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code Section III, Division 5 (BPVC Sec. III, Div. 5) inelastic design-by-analysis rules. The research findings demonstrate pronounced stress relaxation in the monolith caused by thermal creep, resulting in a redistribution of thermal stress. The region experiencing peak thermal stress within the monolith transitions from the thinnest web between the fuel rods to the edge of the monolith after 50 000 h of operation at full power. Thermal creep results in a 40.5% decrease in peak thermal stress and a 0.023% increase in the displacement amplitude of the monolith. The creep fatigue damage in the monolith at full power for 50 cycles, each lasting 1000 h, adheres to the design rule limitation of the ASME BPVC. The damage is primarily concentrated in the thinnest web region at the edge of the monolith, predominantly attributed to creep damage. The creep fatigue damage check in the monolith should carefully consider the effect of stress relaxation.

A paradigm shift for biocatalytic microreactors: Decoupling application from reactor design

Microreactors have been successfully applied to execute a broad range of biotransformations in flow. However, microreactors have typically been designed with a specific biotransformation or a specific biocatalyst immobilization method in mind, constraining their wider applicability. Furthermore, their design is typically either applicable for whole-cell or for enzyme biocatalysis, but not for both. We present a novel microreactor design which offers cartridge-like insertion of both immobilised enzymes and cells. A T-shaped lid opens and closes the reaction chamber (whilst leaving the rest of the microreactor unchanged), enables the easy insertion of immobilised biocatalysts, and thus allows the user to configure different reactor types. We demonstrated this novel concept showing three different reactor types: a hydrogel microreactor containing entrapped E. coli cells overexpressing transketolase (volumetric productivity of 2.23 ± 0.83 mmoll-ERY Lvoid1 min1), a packed-bed microreactor containing commercial beads with immobilised Candida antarctica lipase B (volumetric productivity of 317.69 ± 96.74 mmolBB Lvoid1 min1), and a micropillar microreactor containing surface-immobilised ω-transaminase (volumetric productivity of 0.08 ± 0.02 mmolACP Lvoid1 min1). The proposed design showed consistency and robustness for 10 consecutive T-shaped lid ‘open and close’ cycles and withstood the pressure of at least 4 bar. Design analysis further included Computational Fluid Dynamics models and Residence Time Distribution measurements. The presented design offers a standardised approach for multiple applications, underpinning process development and paving the way for off-the-shelf microreactor technology for biocatalysis.

Preliminary analysis of the core design for Indonesia Micro Reactor (IMR-13)

The development of microreactor technology can meet the energy needs of specific regions of Indonesia’s underdeveloped, foremost, and outermost areas. One of the latest microreactor designs is the Indonesia Micro Reactor (IMR-13), which has seed and blanket fuel and 5MWt power generation. The IMR-13 reactor has characteristic design features for operation for as many as ten years without refuelling. The reactor core comprises integral fuel elements consisting of a heat pipe, fuel matrix, fuel cladding, and graphite moderator. There are two fuel element types: seed fuel elements with 19.75 % low-enriched uranium oxide and blanket fuel elements with thorium oxide – graphite reflectors on the bottom, sides, and top surround the reactor core. Side reflectors have moving parts that function to regulate reactor power. There are no active components in this reactor. Heat transfer occurs by natural circulation in the heat pipe to the molten salt pool and then from the molten salt pool to the steam generator. This research focuses on the neutronic aspect of the reactor, particularly in calculating the seed and blanket ratio to allow the reactor to operate for ten years with minimal power peaking factor. The selected variant model has 979 seeds and 294 blankets. The variation model has a value of excess reactivity at the beginning of the life of 937 pcm. Each value of the shutdown margin for system first and system second sequentially is 3020 pcm and 2994 pcm. The temperature reactivity coefficient is negative, implying inherent safety. At the end of life, the burnup value was achieved at 4.97 GWd/MTU with an excess reactivity of 271 pcm. A parameter analysis of the burnup characteristics will follow in the selected variant model. The parameters examined were the core power distribution, delayed neutrons, the fast fission factor, conversion ratio, and decay heat.

Controlling gas–liquid flow and enhancing heat transfer in a T-junction microchannel by wettability-engineered walls

Characteristics of gas–liquid flow and heat transfer in a cross-flow T-junction microchannel with wettability-engineered walls are numerically investigated in this paper. The validated diffuse interface method is adopted for interface capture. First, the effects of wall wettability on bubble formation and transportation are studied. Three flow patterns are observed due to different combinations of the bottom and the top wall contact angles. On this basis, two methods are proposed to enhance the heat transfer. One is to increase the two-phase interfacial contact area by dividing the microchannel into three functional regions, which can promote the heat exchange at the two-phase interface. The other is to increase the velocity fluctuation intensity by alternating the contact angle along the channel, which can enhance mixing between the hot liquid layer adjacent to the wall and the cool liquid core. These two methods are applicative for steady and unsteady problems, respectively. The flow states, velocity vectors, and streamlines are used to analyze the fluid and thermal mixing mechanism. Meanwhile, a quantitative comparison of the wall temperature is made at a given wall heat flux. The obtained results can provide fresh insights into the gas–liquid flow control and the heat transfer enhancement in a microchannel, which are valuable for the design of microreactors and radiators.

Smart scale-up of micromixers for efficient continuous biodiesel synthesis: A numerical study for process intensification

This study focuses on developing continuous processes for biodiesel synthesis, overcoming limitations of conventional batch reactions, such as biphasic reaction and thermodynamic equilibrium, and reducing production costs. While microreactors are promising for enhancing mixing and transfer rates at smaller scales, scaling up to larger channels results in decreased efficiency and product yield. Microfluidic devices, useful in continuous biodiesel production, lose mixing efficiency when scaled up, affecting product yield. The present study proposes a novel microreactor design with static elements, aiming to improve fluid mixing and reaction performance at higher volumes. The smart scale-up strategy includes an optimized micromixer design, enlarged channel cross-sectional area, and an additional obstacle-free channel. Using a Fractional Design followed by a Central Compound Rotational Design, optimal values for key design variables are identified. Computational tests show a high mixing index (M > 0.77) across a wide range of Reynolds numbers (Re = 0.1–100). Numerical simulations under optimal conditions indicate high conversions (>91 %) for residence times above 60 s. This design promises advancements in industrial-scale biodiesel production, with improved flow and reactant distribution, potentially reducing the number of micro/millidevices needed.

Possibility of YH1.85 and MgO–BeO as a moderator in high temperature reactors

This study compared the neutronic behaviors of the graphite material utilized in standard HTGR reactors to those of yttrium hydride and MgO–BeO moderator materials using the OpenMC and Serpent Monte Carlo codes. keff values for various fuel/moderator ratios in a TRISO particle-embedded moderator matrix were computed. The effect of packing fraction was then investigated, and the keff values for different packing fractions were compared for the MgO–BeO, YH1.85, and C (graphite) moderator matrices in the geometry layout containing randomly placed TRISO particles. In contrast to graphite and MgO–BeO moderators, the keff values for YH1.85 moderator indicated that a very small moderator volume is adequate for thermalization. We also investigated how temperature reactivity feedback impacts different packing fractions. In the temperature reactivity feedback analysis, the overall temperature coefficient was determined to be negative for all moderators. The temperature feedback coefficient for the fuel with the YH1.85 moderator was found to be significantly lower in magnitude than for the system with graphite and MgO–BeO. The burnup findings revealed that graphite and MgO–BeO behaved similarly; however, YH1.85 was shown to be useful only at very low moderator/fuel ratios. With typical HTGR power density, the fuel cycle time for YH1.85 was found to be around 516 days. Also, while the YH1.85 moderator system reduces the risk of proliferation by producing small amounts of 239Pu and 241Pu, it was determined that it is more suitable for small modular and microreactor designs for high-temperature reactors with low moderator/fuel ratio requirements.

An intelligent fault detection and diagnosis monitoring system for reactor operational resilience: Fault diagnosis

Various advanced reactor designs proposed in recent years envision deployment scenarios which feature reactor operations with significantly reduced staffing or even completely autonomous frameworks to reduce the operations and management costs of the plants. Many SMR and microreactor designs feature extended fuel cycles which limit inspection intervals, reduced access to critical components, and load-following capabilities that expose the reactor unit to different transients. Safe and reliable semi- or fully autonomous operations under these challenging operational regimes must be enabled through an on-line monitoring (OLM) system that effectively detects and diagnoses malfunctions in the reactor plant. This work presents the development of the Fault Diagnosis Module of the previously proposed data-driven OLM system for reactor operations: the Fault Detection and Diagnosis Monitoring System (FDDMS). The Fault Diagnosis Module monitors various sensor signatures from multiple systems and components at a nuclear power plant and accurately diagnoses the type and location of a malfunction. When integrated into the complete FDDMS methodology, the Fault Diagnosis Module can provide power transient dependent fault characterization by using separate convolutional neural network (CNN) models for steady state, ramping up in power, and ramping down in power operations, making the FDDMS especially applicable to load-following operational strategies. Two separate diagnosis approaches were explored in this paper for the Fault Diagnosis Module architecture: Hierarchical and End-to-End. The Hierarchical approach is a two-stage architecture in which the first stage uses a single CNN to classify the plant subsystem where the malfunction initiated. Subsequently in the second stage, a separate CNN is used for each subsystem to describe the specific fault type. The End-to-End approach uses a single CNN to directly classify the fault type from the overall list. To efficiently utilize computational resources, the hyperband intelligent hyperparameter optimization method to generate optimal CNN architectures. The diagnosis approaches were compared in terms of precision rate, recall rate, F1-score, and total accuracy for the possible fault types. Both diagnosis approaches produced good and satisfactory performance by generating total diagnosis accuracies above 99% on 17 different malfunction scenarios for all three power transient datasets. Additionally, robustness against noisy sensor data was tested, with models maintaining 99–100% accuracy at various levels of noise, and an illustrative real-time application of the methodology is provided.

Construction of Marigold-like Poly(vinyl alcohol) Microspheres for Catalytic Microreactors.

It has long been pursued to develop polymer microspheres with various special morphologies and structures for better results in applications such as catalysis, drug delivery, and bioscaffolds. However, it remains a challenge to develop a facile method to produce poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) microspheres with special morphologies. Herein, a micron-sized marigold-like poly(vinyl alcohol) (CE-PVATPA) microsphere was engineered and fabricated by a feasible strategy, that is, emulsification-cross-linking, freeze-drying, and secondary acetal reaction steps. The morphological evolution of microspheres was systematically investigated under different conditions, and the procedure of constructing PVA microspheres with stabilizing marigold-like structures was proposed. More importantly, a specially structured PVA microsphere microreactor synergistically loading palladium metal nanoparticles (CE-PVATPA@Pd) for the heterogeneous catalyst 4-nitrophenol (4-NP) could be further demonstrated, which indicated high catalytic activity and excellent recyclability. The resultant stabilized fabricating method is promising to provide valuable guidance for the design and fabrication of a high-performance PVA microsphere microreactor.

High-performance aerodynamic design of supercritical CO2 centrifugal compressor for the Megawatt-class nuclear microreactor (MSC-GFR)

Design of the SCO2 centrifugal compressor is critical for the fuel economy and power output of the nuclear microreactors. In this study, we developed a high-performance aerodynamic design & analysis platform (XJHPCCD) for real-gas centrifugal compressors. Based on the single-zone method, the platform realizes efficient and fast solution to the direct and inverse problems of centrifugal stages in real gases. Using the XJHPCCD platform, we performed a principal component analysis on the performance prediction errors in different combinations of the multiply expressed loss mechanisms. On the results of composite analysis, an optimal loss model was proposed regarding the hundred-kW SCO2 compressor in Megawatt-class microreactors. By coupling the optimal loss model in performance prediction, the errors of pressure rises were reduced from 5–10% to 3% for the Sandia’s verified model, greatly promoting the reliability of aerodynamic analyses. To demonstrate the engineering values of the specifically optimized toolkit, we numerically conducted a design research on the main compressor of a 1 MWt SCO2-cooled fast breeder microreactor (MSC-GFR). Results showed the XJHPCCD platform (coupled with the optimal loss model) has well satisfied the technical demands with high-performance aerodynamic design and low prediction errors. Thereby, it is proved that we have successfully proposed a specifically optimized aerodynamic toolkit for the component design of Megawatt-class microreactors.

Experimental investigation of heat transfer limitations in concentric annular sodium heat pipes and thermosyphon

This paper presents experimental investigations on the heat transfer performance of concentric annular heat pipe (CAHP) and thermosyphon (CATP) using sodium as a working fluid for microreactor applications. CAHP characterized by wicks on the inner and outer walls offers the potential to enhance capillary force and enable more compact microreactor designs. The research aims to understand the implications of structural differences between CAHP, CATP and conventional heat pipe (CHP) and identify favorable conditions for their use in microreactors. The thermal behavior and heat transfer limits of CAHP and CATP were examined under various boundary conditions. The experimental results revealed that CAHP exhibited capillary limits approximately 71.2% higher than cylindrical heat pipes under horizontal conditions. However, the Chi model used for predicting capillary limits showed a difference about 19.7% in horizontal operation and exceeded 44.6% in vertical operation, highlighting the need for considering the effect of non-uniform capillary forces in CAHP. The presence of additional inner wick in CAHP provided large evaporation areas, which facilitated rapid vapor generation and enabled the development of a continuum flow faster than in CHP, by approximately 70 °C. However, in vertical operation, CATP necessitates higher heat fluxes and exhibits notable temperature disparities between the evaporator and condenser regions compared to CAHP. This difference can be explained depend on the vapor generation mechanisms: heat pipes utilize additional wick area to facilitate evaporation, while thermosyphon depend on boiling that the advantages related to the annular flow path in CATP are not clear. Furthermore, the presence of an adiabatic section yields contrasting effects: while it promotes the formation of larger menisci in heat pipes, its presence is unfavorable in thermosyphons as it can elevate boiling temperatures that delayed operations. The findings underscore the advantages of CAHP over CHP, particularly in microreactor applications, provide insights into design optimizations for compact microreactors, and showed gaps in operating prediction models and experimental results.

Improving the micromixing and thermal performance using a novel microreactor design

Improving the micromixing and thermal performance using a novel microreactor design