Novel design integration for advanced nuclear heat-pipe systems

摘要

A new design integrating heat-pipes into a nuclear cooling system is presented. The heat-pipes are presented as the primary mode of heat transfer. Analyzing the prevailing limits to determine suitability for predicting the performance of the heat-pipe concept. When the limits are determined for the design integration, steady-state behavior needs to be quantified. A model that accounts for 3D behavior is evaluated for use. Using the limits to evaluate the design integration, with sodium, the operating regime would still remain below the predicted limits. With potassium the operating regime would exceed the capillary limit. This is caused by the increase in pressure drop. With the 3D model, a validation shows that conduction can give very good results for both transient and steady-state behavior for sodium. It shows that water has poor transient prediction but accurately predicts the steady-state behavior. Both solutions were close to the reported experimental results for steady-state. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.