Ricerc@Sapienza

Liquid metals offer unique properties and their use in a nuclear fusion reactor, both as confined flows and free surface flow, is widely studied in the fusion community. The interaction between this conductive fluid and the tokamak magnetic fields leads to Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) phenomena that influence the flow features. To properly design components that employ liquid metals, it is necessary to accurately predict these features and, although the efforts made in development, a mature code specifically customized to simulate MHD flows is still unavailable.

To minimize MHD pressure drops, the liquid metal in a fusion blanket can be employed just as tritium breeder, whereas a non-conductive secondary fluid is used as coolant. The coolant can be carried in the breeding zone by pipes that, being transversal to the streamwise direction, affect the flow features and heat transfer.

The interaction of the liquid metal with the plasma confinement magnetic field constitutes a challenge for the design of fusion reactor blankets, due to the arise of MHD effects: increased pressure drops, heat transfer suppression, etc. To overcome these issues, a dielectric fluid can be employed as coolant for the breeding zone. A typical configuration involves pipes transverse to the liquid metal flow direction. This numerical study is conducted to assess the influence of pipe conductivity on the MHD flow and heat transfer. The CFD code ANSYS CFX was employed for this purpose.