5 kWe scale-down of the SPAR/SP-100 Heat Pipe Reactor

The SPAR/SP-100 Heat Pipe Reactor was designed to operate at 100 kWe. This report presents work done on a 5 kWe scaled-down of the SPAR/SP-100 design. This scale-down was done in order to compare the performance of a small Heat Pipe Reactor to Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTGs). The work on this design is broken into the following categories: reactor core modeling, control drum modeling, heat rejection modeling, and shadow shield modeling. The reactor core modeling will be completed using the already available computer programs FEMP2D and ORIGEN. FEMP2D will be used to complete the neutronics survey through the core and control drums and it will also be used to ensure the core will be sub-critical in case of a water abort