Heat transfer performance for DCLL blanket with no-wetting insulator walls

Abstract

ABSTRACT Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) effect and heat transfer are two key issues for design of dual coolant lead lithium (DCLL) blanket. Flow channel insert (FCI) has been applied to decouple the liquid metal from the walls to efficiently decline MHD pressure drops and reduce heat losses from the liquid metal for increasing bulk exit temperatures of the blanket. However, there are still big pressure drops and a higher velocity jet located at the gap flow. Moreover, the FCI made from silicon carbide (SiC) constitutes a complex blanket structures which potentially causes special flow phenomena. In the present work, the characteristics of fluid flow and heat transfer in the DCLL blanket channel are investigated for the first wall (FW) sprayed a layer of no-wetting nano coating (NWNC) on its inner surface. The results show that the pressure drop with NWNC wall is one-order magnitude lower than that with FCI in the general DCLL blanket. The Nusselt number on the NWNC wall is about half of that on the general wall. On this basis, a heat transfer criterion equation of DCLL channel is achieved for the NWNC wall without FCI. The results are compared with that criterion equation of general wall conditions, which indicates the criterion equation can well predict the convection heat transfer of DCLL channel.