A walk-away safe, Very-Small, Long-LIfe, Modular (VSLLIM) reactor for portable and stationary power

El‐Genk, Mohamed S.; Palomino, Luis M.

doi:10.1016/j.anucene.2019.01.025

Cited by 19 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 29 publications

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“…Sun et al [4] outlines a conceptual design for a 120 kWe nuclear reactor with lithium heat pipes to cool the core, six control drums, and tungsten and water radiation shields. There are several heat pipe cooled reactor concepts being designed [5]. Sterbentz et al [6], Ahlfeld et al [7], and Mueller and Tsvetkov [8] describe an integral fuel-element heat pipe with a central cavity containing the fuel with the heat pipe region directly surrounding the fuel in an annular configuration.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment of Screen-Covered Grooved Sodium Heat Pipes for Microreactor Applications

Guillen

Turner

2021

Nuclear Technology

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New nuclear reactor designs that incorporate heat pipes are being investigated for possible near-term deployment in terrestrial applications. This study explores the use of screen-covered axially grooved sodium heat pipes and their applicability for providing heat removal for microreactors. A sodium working fluid is appropriate for microreactors operating in the 5 to 20 MWt range at approximately 650ºC. HTPIPE, a legacy software code, was validated for the case of screen-covered grooves and used to perform steady-state analyses to determine the performance limits of a proposed heat pipe design. The performance limits of a sodium heat pipe with a screen-covered square grooved wick structure is compared to that of an equivalent heat pipe with an annular wick. In a horizontal orientation at an operating temperature of 650ºC, the performance limits for the heat pipe with an annular wick configuration are 15% higher than for the screen-covered groove wick. At operating temperatures below 777ºC the annular wick outperforms the screen-covered groove wick and at temperatures above 777ºC the screen-covered grooved wick outperforms the annular wick. However, the marginal performance gain at higher temperatures may not justify the use of heat pipes with a screen-covered groove wick structure due to increased manufacturing costs.

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