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Advanced Reactor Designs for Sustainable Nuclear Energy
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Advanced Reactor Designs for Sustainable Nuclear Energy

A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "B4: Nuclear Energy".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 October 2026 | Viewed by 1751

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Chunyan Zou

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201800, China
Interests: reactor design and analysis; reactor physics and neutronics; nuclear fuel cycles; innovative reactors and new applications
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Yafen Liu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201800, China
Interests: reactor neutron physics; fuel cycle; nuclear design uncertainty analysis

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Toward the goals of achieving reduced carbon emissions and carbon neutrality, nuclear energy, as a clean energy, is an effective way for meeting global energy demands.  The application of nuclear reactors has been increasing not only in electricity supply but also in heat supply, seawater desalination, high-temperature hydrogen production, etc. In recent years, many innovative nuclear reactor concepts, including molten salt reactors, very-high-temperature reactors, gas-cooled fast reactors, lead-cooled fast reactor and sodium-cooled fast reactors, have been proposed. Furthermore, nuclear reactors are designed at different scales (small modular reactors, microreactors, etc.) for specific application scenarios, such as mobile power supply, deep-sea operation, and space operation.

This Special Issue aims to present and disseminate the most recent advances related to the theory, experiment, design, and application of all types of nuclear reactors.

Topics of interest for publication include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Reactor design and analysis;
  • Reactor thermal hydraulics and safety;
  • Reactor physics and neutronics;
  • Nuclear fuel cycles
  • Innovative reactors and new applications;
  • digital reactor and new technology;
  • Waste management, spent fuel, decommissioning.

Dr. Chunyan Zou
Dr. Yafen Liu
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • nuclear reactor
  • nuclear fuel cycle
  • nuclear waste transmutation

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

21 pages, 4172 KB  
Article
Transient Analysis Framework for Heat Pipe Reactors Based on the MOOSE and Its Validation with the KRUSTY Reactor
by Honghui Xu, Naiwen Zhang, Yuhan Fan, Xinran Ma, Minghui Zeng, Rui Yan and Yafen Liu
Energies 2026, 19(8), 1815; https://doi.org/10.3390/en19081815 - 8 Apr 2026
Viewed by 430
Abstract
Heat pipe cooled reactors rely on heat pipes for passive heat transfer and exhibit high reliability and compactness. Therefore, they are considered candidate nuclear reactor systems for future deep space exploration missions. To enable a deeper investigation of heat pipe reactor systems, particularly [...] Read more.
Heat pipe cooled reactors rely on heat pipes for passive heat transfer and exhibit high reliability and compactness. Therefore, they are considered candidate nuclear reactor systems for future deep space exploration missions. To enable a deeper investigation of heat pipe reactor systems, particularly the transient response characteristics of the core, a transient coupled analysis framework is developed based on the multi-physics coupling code MOOSE. This framework includes the core heat transfer module, point kinetics module, heat pipe module, and Stirling engine module. A novel strategy that allows two distinct heat pipe models to be simultaneously invoked within a single simulation in MOOSE is developed. All modules are developed within the MOOSE framework and do not rely on any external programs. The heat pipe module is validated using experimental data from heat pipe startup and operation tests within the maximum relative error of only 0.45%. The entire coupled framework is validated against the KRUSTY operational experiments and is compared with other multi-physics models, demonstrating higher accuracy within the maximum relative error of only 13.7% in core load variation conditions. Meanwhile, transient coupled analyses of the KRUSTY reactor are performed to evaluate its safety performance under accident conditions. In the hypothetical positive reactivity step insertion accident and heat pipe failure accidents, the KRUSTY core exhibits excellent safety performance. And the mechanism of heat pipe power redistribution following heat pipe failure is examined in detail. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Reactor Designs for Sustainable Nuclear Energy)
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24 pages, 14579 KB  
Article
Numerical Investigation of Heat Transfer and Flow Resistance of Fluoride Salt on Shell Side of Helically Coiled Heat Exchangers
by Yu Wang, Qi-Ming Li and Yang Zou
Energies 2026, 19(1), 90; https://doi.org/10.3390/en19010090 - 24 Dec 2025
Viewed by 796
Abstract
The Helically Coiled Heat Exchanger (HCHX) is a promising candidate for modular Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs), valued for its high heat transfer efficiency, structural compactness, reduced fouling tendency, and excellent thermal compensation capabilities. The thermal–hydraulic performance of the shell side, crucial for reactor [...] Read more.
The Helically Coiled Heat Exchanger (HCHX) is a promising candidate for modular Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs), valued for its high heat transfer efficiency, structural compactness, reduced fouling tendency, and excellent thermal compensation capabilities. The thermal–hydraulic performance of the shell side, crucial for reactor efficiency and safety, requires accurate prediction. This is challenged by the scarcity of reliable correlations for high-Prandtl number fluoride salts under low-Reynolds number conditions. To address this gap, this study explores the heat transfer and flow resistance of FNaBe salt flow in an HCHX using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). The validated CFD model examines the effects of structural parameters (number of layers, tube pitch, and helix angle) and inlet conditions (temperatures and velocities). It is found that the Nusselt number and friction factor increase with more layers but decrease with a higher tube pitch and helix angle. Subsequently, new empirical correlations integrating these geometric parameters are proposed, demonstrating excellent agreement with simulation results (deviations within the range of −10–5% for Nu and −5–10% for f). This study offers vital theoretical support for optimizing compact HCHX designs in MSRs. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Reactor Designs for Sustainable Nuclear Energy)
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