NUCLEAR REACTOR MUST NEED HEAT PIPE FOR COOLING

Abstract

In March 11, 2011, a natural disaster of earthquakes and tsunami had caused a serious potential nuclear reactor meltdown in Fukushima, Japan. The problem was lost of electrical power to run the active cooling system for the nuclear reactor in case of emergency nuclear reactor shut down. In this paper, authors present and propose a completely passive cooling system using loop heat pipe for cooling the residual heat of nuclear reactor in case of emergency when the electrical power loss to run the cooling system. The design is focus on the Fukushima No.1 plant which has a capacity of 1,380 MW thermal that capable of producing 460 MW electricity. The system also feature a double wall heat pipe heat exchanger for steam generation in which is more reliable to prevent leakage. The proposed system is passive and is applicable to Boiling Water Reactor (BWR), Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR), and Fast Breeder Reactor (FBR).