Three-Dimensional Temperature Field Monitoring of Heat Pipe Reactor Core

Abstract The heat pipe reactor is a new type of nuclear reactor based on the principle of heat pipe. It adopts the concept of solid core design, and transfers the fission heat through the matrix to the heat pipe by heat conduction. This type of reactor exhibits good inherent safety and single point failure resistance, and is an ideal candidate for space nuclear power systems and transportable nuclear power supply. This paper studies the core temperature monitoring method of heat pipe reactor based on three-dimensional temperature field reconstruction method. The reconstruction method is based on the value of thermocouple arranged inside the matrix. In each assembly, there are 6 thermocouples. They are used to monitor the temperature of matrix and to predict the temperature of cladding and fuel pins. The temperature field reconstruction method reconstructs the whole temperature field through a small number of discrete measuring points of thermocouple, and then expand the measurement data in large quantities. Using this method, the heat pipe failure and cladding failure were predicted, the specific location of the failed heat pipe is determined by monitoring the relative temperature change of the thermocouples at different positions.