5-9 September 2016
Prague Congress Centre
Europe/Prague timezone

P2.172 Water hydraulic experiment as a simulant for the molten salt blanket with metal powders

6 Sep 2016, 14:20
1h 40m
Foyer 2A (2nd floor), 3A (3rd floor) (Prague Congress Centre)

Foyer 2A (2nd floor), 3A (3rd floor)

Prague Congress Centre

5. května 65, Prague, Czech Republic
Board: 172
Poster H. Fuel Cycle and Breeding Blankets P2 Poster session

Speaker

Takuya Goto (National Institute for Fusion Science)

Description

Lithium molten salts (e.g., Flibe, Flinabe) have several merits as a self-cooled tritium breeding material: low reactivity, low density and low electric conductivity. On the other hand, molten salts may cause a problem of tritium migration to the structural material of the blanket due to the low hydrogen solubility. To overcome this problem, an active control of the effective hydrogen solubility of the molten salts by mixing the powder of hydrogen-soluble metals (e.g., titanium, zirconium) has been proposed by A. Sagara, where the hydrogen can be recovered by selective heating of powders with micro-wave. An increase of 5 orders of magnitude in hydrogen solubility has been confirmed by the experiment under a static condition by J. Yagi et al. Prior to the hydraulic experiment of molten-salt/metal powder mixture in a large-scale loop, hydraulic experiment with a small-size loop using water/metal powder mixture is scheduled to investigate the effect of the powder mixing such as changes in the flow characteristics, flow behavior in the magnetic field or at bend section, erosion of the inner wall of the pipe and so on, where water at room-temperature has a viscosity comparable to that of molten salts and is suitable as a simulant of molten salts. The water loop can generate steady-state, continuous flow with a flow velocity of ~5 m/s. It has a part of a 90-degree bend which seamlessly connected to the downstream of the straight channel with a length enough to make a fully developed turbulent flow. At this straight channel, strong permanent magnets can be set to generate magnetic field perpendicular to the flow direction. Using this water loop, the effect of powder mixing is now under evaluation. In the presentation, initial results of this hydraulic experiment will be reported.

Co-authors

Akio Sagara (National Institute for Fusion Science, Toki, Japan) Juro Yagi (National Institute for Fusion Science, Toki, Japan) Takuya Goto (National Institute for Fusion Science, Toki, Japan) Teruya Tanaka (National Institute for Fusion Science, Toki, Japan)

Presentation Materials

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