Study on a Nuclear Spaceship for Interplanetary Cruise Reactor Thermal-hydraulics Design by using CFD code

摘要

In resent years, spacecraft energy system has become more complex and bigger to fulfill long term mission requirement. Therefore, the safety, reliability and high-power of electrical power supply is required. In this research, the cogeneration system of manned spacecraft for interplanetary cruise using nuclear power has been studied. This system is composed by fast reactor, stirling engine and radiator panel. The stirling engine’s cylinders which are installed in down comer of reactor should be supplied 750kWth heat input per unit. Thin heat transfer tubes are built around stirling engine cylinder for this massive heat input. The possibility of heat input from fast reactor to stirling engine was evaluated with CFD analysis. The analysis result showed that the heat input of initial model was lower than predicted. The shortage was caused by the liquid-sodium bypass flow without flow into the heat transfer tube bundles. Finally, we attained rated 750kWth heat input by using flow duct for each stirling engine. Then pressure loss and maximum velocity through the heat transfer tubes were 23[kPa] and 3.2[m/s] respectively.