[1E10-15] Floating Reactor and Lunar Reactor Design

6:10 PM - 6:25 PM JST(9:10 AM - 9:25 AM UTC)

[1E15] Conceptual Design of a Compact Heat Pipe Device for Lunar Surface Power Generation

*Ayoob Ilyas¹, Masahiko Nakase¹, Andika Putra Dwijayanto¹, Alessio Rossi^1,5, Hide Okada², Chris Allison³, Zheng Fu⁴, Shuying Jiang⁴ (1. Science Tokyo, 2. The Institute of Energy Safety Technology, Ltd. (IEST), 3. Innovative Systems Software, LLC (ISS), 4. Future RHYS, 5. PSI)

Keywords:

Lunar reactor,Microreactor,Reactor physics,Thermal hydraulics,Heat pipes,SERPENT 2

With space colonisation ambitions, establishing a lunar base is a critical first step, and a reliable power source is essential. This study explores the conceptual design of a 50 kWe microreactor, utilizing PuN-UN fuel and a network of 96 heat pipes, simulated using the SERPENT 2 neutronics code over a 10-year operational period. The reactor's criticality values and feedback coefficients are calculated, with a power output of 250 kWt and a 20% efficiency after conversion losses. The heat pipes are integrated with AMTEC modules for electric conversion, and steady-state thermal hydraulics calculations are conducted. The reactor demonstrates a low reactivity swing, remaining barely critical at end-of-life (EOL). Additionally, a failure scenario simulates half of the control slats being inactive, causing the reactor to go subcritical. Reactor mass estimations are performed, and the power requirements for a lunar base are discussed.