EnginSoft - Conference Abstracts

EnginSoft Users' Meeting 2008
Le Tecnologie CAE nell'Industria

CFD investigation of the IFMIF liquid lithium target facility under deuterons beam load

Mercurio Giovanni - ENEA

Abstract

The International Fusion Materials Facility (IFMIF) facility planned for testing the candidate materials for the next nuclear fusion reactor ITER ( International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) uses a high speed (10-20 m/s) Lithium (Li) jet flow as a target for two 40 MeV / 125 mA deuteron beams n vacuum environment of 10-3Pa in very stable condition. The major function of the Li target is to provide a stable Li jet for the production of an intense neutron flux. The target is panned to be 25mm thick and 260mm wide plane jet flow, which flows along a concave back wall with curvature radius of 250mm. For the understanding the lithium jet behaviour and elimination of the free-surface flow instabilities a detailed analysis of the Li jet flow is necessary. For this reason A set of thermal hydraulics investigations of the IFMIF Li – Target have been performed with the CFD code ANSYS CFX.

In particular Velocity profiles, thickness of the flow cross sections and temperature flow field under nuclear power load have been estimated using a 2D model of the nozzle and jet flow and the results were compared when possible with experimental data.

The calculation campaign showed that CFD codes are a very useful tool to supply information of main flow parameters, provided that the model is properly refined.

Nevertheless careful consideration must be payed on the CFD results considering that no suitable models exist for the special IFMIF conditions (vacuum, liquid metal fluids).