Preliminary Design Optimization Study of Heat Pipe for Space Reactor Application

摘要

The power output and overall dimension of the heat pipe cooled nuclear reactor can be affected by the heat pipe performance and design parameters. Therefore, design optimization of the heat pipe should be conducted to achieve enhanced reactor performance by adjusting various design parameters and mass flow rate of working fluid.A preliminary experiment was conducted according to the heat input to evaluate the heat pipe performance. Further study is needed regarding suggestion of the thermal performance enhancement method by adjusting pipe diameter and vapor flow velocity, increase in mass flow rate inside the heat pipe and compares the theoretically investigated operation limits with experimental results to evaluate the heat pipe performance and derive the optimal design parameters.