Influences of the bend angle and the locally different electrical conductivity of the structural walls on the flow characteristics of the LM MHD splitting flows

Abstract

The minimization of the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) pressure drop is a hot issue in the design of liquid-metal blanket. The current study aims to investigate the flow distribution and MHD pressure drop in a 3-D magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) flow of a liquid-metal (LM) through a conduit with one inlet and two outlet ducts. CFX software is used to investigate the features of the MHD splitting flows. Here, cases with various electrical conductivity of the structural walls in the two outlet ducts are analyzed with the consideration of different bend angles, which yields various flow distributions in different cases, and also causes mass imbalance in the two outlet ducts. The results show that, when the bend angle is fixed, the mass imbalance increases with the growing discrepancy of the electrical conductivity between the two outlet ducts. Meanwhile, the uneven mass flow rate therein also depends on the variation of the bend angle. Furthermore, this study found that locally different electrical conductivity of the structural walls in T-junction ducts can reduce the MHD pressure drop significantly, and 70% of the pressure drop is reduced within the Test Blanket Module (TBM) when the discrepancy in the electrical conductivity of the two outlet ducts is the largest.