Critical Exploration of Liquid Metal Plasma-Facing Components in a Fusion Nuclear Science Facility

Kessel, C.; Andruczyk, Daniel; Blanchard, James P.; Bohm, Tim D.; Davis, Andrew; Hollis, Kendall J.; Humrickhouse, Paul W.; Hvasta, Michael; Jaworski, M. A.; Jun, Jiheon; Katoh, Yutai; Khodak, Andrei; Klein, J. E.; Kolemen, Egemen; Larsen, George K.; Majeski, R.; Merrill, B.J.; Morley, Neil B.; Neilson, G.H.; Pint, Bruce A.; Rensink, M.E.; Rognlien, T. D.; Rowcliffe, A.F.; Smolentsev, S.; Tillack, M. S.; Waganer, Lester M.; Wallace, G. M.; Wilson, Paul P. H.; Yoon, Su-Jong

doi:10.1080/15361055.2019.1610685

Cited by 36 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 108 publications

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“…Overall, interIsoFoam has proven to be able to correctly simulate the basic characteristics of a flow with a high density ratio, therefore it is an excellent candidate for the future implementation of the MHD equations, following the methodology presented by Zhang et al [41], for the study of the migration of helium bubbles in the blanket [2,3], but also in the framework of the advanced PFCs [17][18][19].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The possibility of analysing these effects through an MHD solver capable of simulating mixtures of a liquid metal and a gas is, indeed, very important both for the design of the breeding blanket [2,3] and for the plasma-facing components, in which advanced solutions may foresee the employment of liquid metal films, jet curtains and other solutions to protect the solid substrate below from the thermal and radiative load coming from the plasma [17][18][19].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Numerical Simulation of High-Density Ratio Bubble Motion with interIsoFoam

Siriano

Balcázar

Tassone

et al. 2022

Fluids

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The breeding blanket is one of the fundamental components of a nuclear fusion reactor and is responsible for the fuel production, generating tritium through neutronic capture reaction between lithium and neutrons. Lithium is a liquid PbLi alloy and the helium formed as reaction by-product can coalesce into bubbles, generating a two-phase mixture with a high-density ratio (ηρ∼O5). These bubbles can accumulate and stagnate within the blanket channels with potentially harmful consequences. In this work, the interIsoFoam solver of OpenFOAM v2012 is used to simulate bubble motion for a two-phase mixture representative of the He-PbLi system to test its potential for future developments in the field of fusion. In a first phase, several traditional benchmarks were carried out, both 2D and 3D, and considering the two variants of the VOF method implemented in the solver, isoAdvector and plicRDF. Subsequently, He bubbles of different diameters rising in liquid PbLi (ηρ=1.2×105) were analysed to investigate different regimes. For a Eötvös number (Eo) greater than 10, it was possible to recreate the axisymmetric, skirted, oscillatory regimes and the peripheral and central breakup regimes. For Eo < 10, non-physical deformations of the interface are observed, probably generated by spurious velocities that have a greater impact on the solution for very small bubbles and rising velocities.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Numerical Simulation of High-Density Ratio Bubble Motion with interIsoFoam

Siriano

Balcázar

Tassone

et al. 2022

Fluids

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“…The danger of electrons running away to relativistic energies has been prominent in the literature for more than twenty years, but no method has yet been devised of mitigating the danger in a way that is perceived to be reliable. If fusion is to be developed rapidly, a demonstration reactor (DEMO) must be designed to allow first wall components to be changed quickly-too many uncertainties remain in first wall materials [8,9], in concepts such as walls being covered by liquids [10], and in blankets for breeding tritium [11] for it to be otherwise.…”

Section: Stellarators As a Path For The Rapid Development Of Fusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Even a thin layer of liquid on plasma-facing components can address four issues [10]. First, the layer can eliminate the degradation of wall materials that can be produced by fusing plasma plasmas.…”

Section: Development Of Liquid Filmsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stellarators as a fast path to fusion

Boozer¹

2021

Nucl. Fusion

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The speed with which fusion can be developed is important for the mitigation of the physical and political risks associated with the continual increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide. Remarkably, a stellarator demonstration reactor (DEMO) could be based more reliably on the empirical information available now than a tokamak DEMO on the empirical information that ITER is likely to provide over the next twenty years. Waiting imposes major risks on society and is unnecessary. Readiness is sufficiently revolutionary that many will assume that it can be dismissed without thought. But, those who are willing to read and to think will find the arguments simple and self-evident. The paper explains not only how stellarators are better positioned now than any other concept for a fast path to fusion but also areas in which further improvements can be quickly made to stellarators through computational design.

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“…To a lesser degree, some research efforts were also directed towards developing simulation techniques for incompressible MHD flows, especially for single‐phase internal liquid metal flows in fusion reactor blankets 10‐12 . The recently revived and steadily growing interest in liquid metals as plasma facing components for magnetic confinement fusion 13‐16 has motivated efforts towards the development of robust, flexible, and physically comprehensive simulation techniques of incompressible, multiphase MHD. Recent attempts towards that end focused on using the well‐established finite volume and finite element Eulerian approaches.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Magnetic induction and electric potential smoothed particle magnetohydrodynamics for incompressible flows

Al-Salami

Kamra

et al. 2020

Numerical Methods in Fluids

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Summary In order to solve incompressible, nonideal magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) free‐surface flows, two weakly compressible smoothed particle hydrodynamics models, with and without the consideration of magnetic induction, are developed. The SPH formulation for magnetic induction magnetohydrodynamics (SPMHD), which is popular in astrophysical studies, is applied for the first time to incompressible free‐surface MHD flows, such as liquid metal flows, with the consideration of nonideal MHD effects and boundaries with arbitrary electric conductivity. An SPMHD implementation using the inductionless approximation is also proposed for both electrically conductive and insulating boundaries, in which a Poisson equation is solved to compute the Lorentz force instead of evolving the magnetic induction equation. Both proposed methods are validated against MHD benchmarks, including free‐surface MHD cases. The proposed inductionless SPMHD implementation has the advantages of stability and relaxed time‐step restrictions, but is only accurate at a low range of Hartmann numbers. For high Hartmann number problems, magnetic induction SPMHD model is more accurate. The computational efficiency and conservation error of the two models are compared and discussed.

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Critical Exploration of Liquid Metal Plasma-Facing Components in a Fusion Nuclear Science Facility

Cited by 36 publications

References 108 publications

Numerical Simulation of High-Density Ratio Bubble Motion with interIsoFoam

Numerical Simulation of High-Density Ratio Bubble Motion with interIsoFoam

Stellarators as a fast path to fusion

Magnetic induction and electric potential smoothed particle magnetohydrodynamics for incompressible flows

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