Design and construction of a helium cooling experimental loop

Abstract

The helium cooling tritium breeding blanket and helium cooling divertor, which produce tritium or heat, are important components in Chinese Fusion Engineering Test Reactor (CFETR) design. The helium cooling system, which function is similar to the primary loop of Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR), is designed to extract energy from blankets and divertors. These helium cooling components have many complex internal flow channels to extract high thermal load. They also have to withstand electromagnetic force, thermal stress and coolant pressure, etc. Therefore, out-of-pile experiments must be carried out as far as possible to verify the design. Under CFETR project support, a helium cooling experiment loop is built to carry out the thermo-hydraulic experiments for these components and to accumulate experience of helium cooling system. According to the cooling requirements of blanket, the loop test section operating parameters are flow rate 2.5kg/s, temperature 550°C and pressure 12MPa. During preliminary commissioning, these parameters have been reached. A high heat flux testing facility will connect to this loop for future experiments.