Nuclear Engineering and Technology

Korean Nuclear Society (한국원자력학회)
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Neutronics analysis of a 200 kWe space nuclear reactor with an integrated honeycomb core design

  • Chao Chen (Institute of Nuclear Energy Safety Technology, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences) ;
  • Huaping Mei (Institute of Nuclear Energy Safety Technology, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences) ;
  • Meisheng He (Institute of Nuclear Energy Safety Technology, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences) ;
  • Taosheng Li (Institute of Nuclear Energy Safety Technology, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences)
  • Received : 2022.02.14
  • Accepted : 2022.08.13
  • Published : 2022.12.25
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Abstract

Heat pipe cooled nuclear reactor has been a very attractive technical solution to provide the power for deep space applications. In this paper, a 200 kWe space nuclear reactor power design has been proposed based on the combination of an integrated UN ceramic fuel, a heat pipe cooling system and the Stirling power generators. Neutronics and thermal analysis have been performed on the space nuclear reactor. It was found that the entire reactor core has at least 3.9 $ subcritical even under the worst-case submersion accident superimposed a single safety drum failure, and results from fuel temperature coefficient, neutron spectrum and power distribution analysis also showed that this reactor design satisfies the neutronics requirements. Thermal analysis showed that the power in the core can be successfully removed both in normal operation or under one or more heat pipes failure scenarios.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

The authors gratefully acknowledge that this research was supported by the Key Deployment Projects of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant no. ZDRW-KT-2019-1-0202).

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