Experimental study on the sub-atmospheric loop heat pipe passive cooling system for spent fuel pool

As one kind of the natural circulation cooling system, loop heat pipe is promising in improving the safety of the nuclear power station since it is passive and has no electricity driven components. A novel heat pipe cooling system is designed for passively removing the residual heat released by the spent fuel stored in the spent fuel pool (SFP) under the accidental conditions such as the station blackout. This system is characterized by its large-diameter and long-length evaporator. Its working fluid is water and it's sub-atmospheric. To test such system's heat transfer performance and get to know its thermo-fluid dynamics, a test facility for a simplified heat pipe made of one evaporator tube and one condenser has been developed. The heat transfer rate of the simplified heat pipe is obtained in a wide range of conditions covering the potential working conditions in spent fuel pool. Moreover, it's found that heat pipe with such a large-diameter and long-length evaporator is vulnerable to be unstable. The periodic state mode is more likely to happen when the heat source temperature, the air velocity or the volumetric filling ratio is low. Furthermore, the effects of hot water temperature, the air velocity and the filling ratio of the water in the circulation system have been analyzed. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.