The heat pipe cooled reactor adopts the solid-state reactor design concept, and it has the characteristics of high power density, compact structure and high inherent safety. It has been extensively used for deep space exploration, deep sea exploration, remote areas electricity markets and other scenarios. Nuclear fuel is an important part of the heat pipe cooling reactor, different types of nuclear fuel will reflect different neutronics performance on the reactor burnup analysis. In this paper, based on the heat pipe cooled reactor INL Design A proposed by the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), the burnup calculation is done by selecting six nuclear fuels : UO₂, (U_0.9Pu_0.1)O₂, U-10Zr, U-8Pu-10Zr, UN and UC. The effects of different nuclear fuel and power levels on the burnup performance of heat pipe cooled reactor core were analyzed. The calculation results show that under the same core burnup depth (20.8 GW·d·t^-1), the core loaded with U-8Pu-10Zr fuel requires the lowest ²³⁵U enrichment (9.8%), and has better U-Pu breeding. For the heat pipe cooling reactor with the core power of 5 MW, the presence of ²⁴¹Pu in the fuel does not increase the core burnup depth, but leads to the increase of residual reactivity of the core and the yield of the secondary actinides nuclides (MAs) in the core end of life, which affects the safety and economy of the reactor. Therefore, for the low-power and long-life heat pipe cooled reactor loaded with Pu fuel, it is necessary to focus on the influence of ²⁴¹Pu on the core burnup performance.