Optimization of the pressure drops in the helium in-module manifolds of the EU DEMO “Optimized Conservative” HCLL Breeding Blanket

Abstract

In Europe the technology to develop DEMO is being supported by HORIZON 2020 research programme under EUROfusion Consortium. One of the key components that DEMO relies on is a working Breeding Blanket (BB). There are currently four Breeding Blanket concepts being developed in Europe, whose primary purpose is to convert kinetic energy of the neutrons into heat and to transfer this converted heat to a coolant, breed tritium to make plant self-sufficient of fuel and to shield magnets from radiation. This paper describes helium distribution system in the “Optimized Conservative” concept of Helium Cooled Lithium Lead (HCLL) BB, according to the HCLL 2014 Design Description Document. This contains three manifolds to distribute the helium in to several parts of the BB namely the First Wall, Cooling Plates, horizontal Stiffening Plates and the vertical Stiffening Plates. The work mainly focuses on optimization study and reduction of the pressure drops in the helium manifolds. The same is achieved by changing several geometrical parameters to keep the pressure drops under the limit. To achieve the results ANSYS-FLUENT commercial Computational fluid dynamic code is used. The final results include the modified geometry which gives lowest pressure drops for the given mass flow rate.