棱柱式高温气冷空间核反应堆初步方案设计与中子物理分析

空间核反应堆电源将核裂变能转换为电能,与太阳能、化学燃料电池等其他形式的电源相比,具有电功率大、系统比功率高、使用寿命长等优点,在太空探索中具有广阔的应用前景。以高温气冷堆技术为基础,提出了以氦氙混合气体作冷却剂,直接布雷顿循环的空间核反应堆电源方案。核反应堆是采用包覆颗粒燃料的小型棱柱式高温气冷堆,热功率为5 MW。采用蒙特卡罗方法进行了中子物理分析。结果表明,设计的反应堆满足10a以上的满功率运行寿期,具有负的反应性温度系数。通过布置B4C安全棒,使反应堆在发射失败引起的堆芯进水事故中能保证次临界。

Preliminary Design and Neutronic Analysis of Prismatic High Temperature Gas-cooled Space Nuclear Reactor

Space power system based on fission nuclear reactor has advantages of large electric power, high specific power and long-time running compared with solar energy and chemical fuel battery, and the space nuclear reactor is promising to be widely applied in space exploration. Based on high temperature gas-cooled reactor technology, a design case of space nuclear reactor power system was proposed, where He-Xe mixture was adopted as the coolant of reactor and the working fluid of closed Brayton cycle. The designed space nuclear reactor is a small prismatic high temperature gas-cooled reactor employing the coated particle fuel, and the thermal power is 5 MW. Monte Carlo method was employed for neutronic analysis. The calculated results show that the designed reactor is capable of achieving 10 years of full power operation, having negative reactivity temperature coefficient, and remaining subcritical in submersion accident.