Design and analysis of nuclear battery driven by the external neutron source

作者：Wang Sanbing; He Chaohui^*

来源：Annals of Nuclear Energy, 2014, 72: 455-460.

DOI：10.1016/j.anucene.2014.06.006

• Space nuclear power
• GPHS-RTG
• NBDEx
• MCNP
• Monterburn
• Nuclear battery

Based on the theory of ADS (Accelerator Driven Subcritical reactor), a new type of nuclear battery was investigated, which was composed of a subcritical fission module and an isotope neutron source, called NBDEx (Nuclear Battery Driven by External neutron source). According to the structure of GPHS-RTG (General Purpose Heat Source Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator), the fuel cell model and fuel assembly model of NBDEx were set up, and then their performances were analyzed with MCNP code. From these results, it was found that the power and power density of NBDEx were almost six times higher than the RTG's. For fully demonstrating the advantage of NBDEx, the analysis of its impact factors was performed with MCNP code, and its lifetime was also calculated using the Origen code. These results verified that NBDEx was more suitable for the space missions than RTG.

• 出版日期2014-10
• 单位西安交通大学