Study on thermal characteristics of u-shaped heat pipe

The latest accident in Japan's nuclear power station became a valuable experience to start engaging passive cooling systems (PCS) more aggressively to improve safety aspects in nuclear power reactors being studied in Indonesia. This investigation is related to the U-shaped heat pipe (UHP) research as PCS of water in the cooling tank (CT). The objective of this research is to study the thermal characteristics of UHP as PCS in the CT. The experiment on small-scale UHP and simulation with RELAP5 code has been conducted to understand the performance of UHP. The experiment results of the small-scale UHP model will be used as a basic understanding of simulating and designing a UHP with big scaling. The study result showed the highest thermal performance of UHP was obtained when it operated on the higher temperature of heat load and higher air cooling velocity. The more UHPs inserted into the cooling pool, the more heat that can be discharged into the environment. This result also shows promising use of UHP for CT PCS. The use of UHP as PCS can enhance the safety aspect of the nuclear reactor, especially in station blackout event.