Dynamic evaluation of a scaled-down heat pipe-cooled system during start-up/shut-down processes using a hardware-in-the-loop test approach

Micro-mobile heat pipe-cooled nuclear power plants are promising candidates for distributed energy resource power generators and can be flexibly deployed in remote places to meet increasing electric power demands. However, previous steady-state simulations and experiments have deviated significantly from actual micronuclear system operations. Hence, a transient analysis is required for performance optimization and safety assessment. In this study, a hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) approach was used to investigate the dynamic behavior of scaled-down heat pipe-cooled systems. The real-time features of the HIL architecture were interpreted and validated, and an optimal time step of 500 ms was selected for the thermal transient. The power transient was modeled using point kinetic equations, and a scaled-down thermal prototype was set up to avoid modeling unpredictable heat transfer behaviors and feeding temperature samples into the main program running on a desktop PC. A series of dynamic test results showed significant power and temperature oscillations during the transient process, owing to the inconsistency of the rapid nuclear reaction rate and large thermal inertia. The proposed HIL approach is stable and effective for further studying of the dynamic characteristics and control optimization of solid-state small nuclear-powered systems at an early prototyping stage.