Unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) are being used for many civil and military applications. Power sources with longer life are required for deployment in UUVs. Unlike conventional power sources, nuclear reactor with longer life can be considered for such application. In the present paper, a MW-level Lead-cooled reactor is proposed for UUV power source. Low enriched UO₂ core with 10 EFPY life is considered for the present design. Various core configurations have been considered to obtain the final optimized design. This design satisfies the required criteria. Enough excess reactivity with adequate shutdown margin is ensured to run the system for its design life. The shielding performance has also been evaluated to show the feasibility of nuclear source in a compact unmanned facility.

无人水下航行器 (UUV) 正被用于许多民用和军用应用。在 UUV 中部署需要具有更长寿命的电源。与常规电源不同，这种应用可以考虑寿命更长的核反应堆。在本文中，提出了一种用于 UUV 电源的 MW 级铅冷反应堆。本设计考虑了具有 10 EFPY 寿命的低浓缩 UO ₂核。已经考虑了各种磁芯配置以获得最终的优化设计。这种设计满足要求的标准。确保有足够的过量反应性和足够的停机裕度来运行系统的设计寿命。还对屏蔽性能进行了评估，以证明核源在紧凑型无人设施中的可行性。