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2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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Latest News
The current status of heat pipe R&D
Idaho National Laboratory under the Department of Energy–sponsored Microreactor Program recently conducted a comprehensive phenomena identification and ranking table (PIRT) exercise aimed at advancing heat pipe technology for microreactor applications.
Piyush Sabharwall, Yeon Jong Yoo, Qiao Wu, James J. Sienicki
Nuclear Technology | Volume 178 | Number 3 | June 2012 | Pages 298-317
Technical Paper | Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT12-A13595
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The effect of fluid axial thermal conduction on one-dimensional liquid metal natural circulation and its linear stability was performed through nondimensional analysis, steady-state assessment, and linear perturbation evaluation. The Nyquist criterion and a root-search method were employed to find the linear stability boundary of both forward and backward circulations. The study provided a relatively complete analysis method for one-dimensional natural circulation problems with the consideration of fluid axial heat conduction. The results suggest that fluid axial heat conduction in a natural circulation loop should be considered only when the modified Peclet number is [approximately]1 or less, which is significantly smaller than the practical value of a lead liquid metal-cooled reactor.