Magnetohydrodynamic velocity and pressure drop in manifolds of a WCLL TBM

Abstract

In the frame of the EUROfusion breeding blanket research activities, the water cooled lead lithium (WCLL) blanket is considered as reference liquid metal blanket design to be tested in ITER and to be used in a DEMO reactor. The design of breeding blankets represents a major challenge for fusion reactor engineering because of the performance requirements and the severe operating conditions in terms of heat load and neutron flux. Liquid metal alloys such as lead-lithium, PbLi, are considered as breeder material, due to their lithium content required for tritium production, and as heat transfer medium because of their large thermal conductivity and the possibility to be operated at high temperature. On the other hand, the motion of the electrically conducting breeder in the plasma-confining magnetic field induces electric currents and generates strong electromagnetic forces that modify significantly the velocity distribution in the blanket compared to hydrodynamic conditions and increase pressure losses. Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) pressure drops have to be carefully quantified, since excessive values can jeopardize the feasibility of the considered blanket concept. The present work investigates numerically liquid metal MHD flows in manifolds of a WCLL test blanket module. Velocity and pressure distributions are analyzed.