Applications of heat pipe in the nuclear power engineering

A survey was made on the applications of heat pipe in the space nuclear power system, in cooling the nuclear waste, and in protecting the shell of containment for safety under accidents. A proposal of using the heat pipe to the steam generator in the nuclear power engineering was also put forward. The recent status of research and development in these aspects, both domestic and abroad, was introduced, which shows that the performances of heat pipes can meet the requirements from nuclear power engineering and reach the level for commercialized application, if they are carefully designed, tested, and constructed with appropriate shell-material, working fluid, and wick structure.