Effects of Heat Pipe Failures in Microreactors

Technical Report · Mon Jun 22 04:00:00 EDT 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1630841· OSTI ID:1630841

Galloway, Jack Douglas ^[1]; Lawdensky, Valerie Jean ^[1]; Poston, David Irvin ^[1]; Trellue, Holly Renee ^[1]; Blood, Mikaela E. ^[1]

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1. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

Microreactors provide new opportunities for nuclear reactor applications given their long-lived fuel source, compact size, portability, reliability as it relates to safety and their self-regulating nature. To take advantage of these opportunities there are technological challenges that need to be overcome. One advancing technology often used in conjunction with microreactor designs are heat pipes, which are used for heat removal from the reactor core to the power conversion system. Heat pipes are a substitute for the traditional system in which the same fluid used as coolant in the reactor is then used as the working fluid in the power conversion system. This document describes how heat pipes operate, what happens when a heat pipe fails, and what codes can be used to simulate the results. Our analyses show that a single/double heat pipe failure results in a temperature increase of 15-50°C respectively in surrounding heat pipes. Heat pipe microreactors could be easily designed such that this increase is within the maximum parameters allowable for safety and does not result in cascading heat pipe failure. Thus, such failures do not lead to severe degradation of the reactor.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
• DOE Contract Number: 89233218CNA000001
• OSTI ID: 1630841
• Report Number(s): LA-UR--20-23798
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
42 ENGINEERING