Thermal Design Investigation for a Flinabe Blanket System

Abstract

The present study evaluates the thermal design of a blanket system using Flinabe in order to facilitate further discussions on its applicability as a self-cooled liquid blanket system. Molecular dynamics simulations were performed to evaluate the Prandtl number of mixtures in five compositions (LiF–NaF–BeF2 = 31–31–38, 36–27–37, 42–22–36, 49–16–35, and 67–0–33). Thermofluid analysis was carried out to estimate the temperature margin and pressure drop per unit length in a simple geometry model of the blanket system. The Prandtl number of Flinabe is above 100 at 400°C. The present study reveals that Flinabe remarkably relaxes the design conditions compared to Flibe as a coolant owing to its low melting point. In contrast, the pressure drop per unit length of Flinabe is higher than that of Flibe because the viscosity exponentially increases at low temperature. The temperature margin is quite dependent on the heat load on the first wall. If the pressure drop per unit length is around 1.0 MPa/m, the heat load value must be approximately below 0.7 MW/m2.