The following proposal is focused on the developing, verification and validation of a new version of RELAP5 code capable to consider the global effects generated into a high-intensity magnetic field on the pressure drops and heat transfer capabilities for liquid metals. These effects are important to reach an optimized design for a liquid fusion reactor blanket, namely the Water Coolant Lithium Lead (WCLL) concept, currently being developed for implementation in ITER (as a Test Blanket Module) and DEMO. This is based on a Lithium Lead Eutectic blanket and to realize a reliable and solid design is necessary to analyze all its peculiar aspects with a unique code, usable both in design and during the safety analysis.
The RELAP5 code, the main and more widespread two-phase system code developed by Idaho National Laboratory (USA) has been selected as base for our version.
The correlations planned to be implemented in the code to evaluate the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) pressure drop cover both basic geometry elements (round and rectangular straight pipes) and more complex ones (i.e. cross-section variation, bends, etc). which are present within the LiPb hydraulic circuit.
This activity will lead to a significant improvement in the baseline RELAP5 code presently used to aid the WCLL design by including basic MHD modeling capability. Since very few system codes presently include these features, and none include hat transfer, there is potential for our modified version to become the reference in the field.
This know-how could be used to attract potential funding from European and international projects correlated to the ITER WCLL TBM development, other liquid metal blanket concepts, and the Divertor Tokamak Test(DTT). In particular, the DTT machine, that will be realized in the next years in Frascati and will be the main experimental facility developed in Italy in this field, with worldwide importance, could be a fundamental application for our modified version of the code.
