Speaker
Zhiqiang Zhu
(Institute of Nuclear Energy Safety Technology (INEST))
Description
Because of the depletion and limitation of natural energy sources, fusion energy is the promising and irreplaceable way for energy development in the future. As the only energy conversion unit in the fusion reactor, PbLi blanket is considered as one of the important blankets for DEMO and fusion reactors, Lead Lithium (PbLi) is designed as tritium breeder, neutron multiplier and coolant. Before the engineering application of fusion energy, series of issues need to be validated completely out of pile, such as corrosion behavior of blanket structural materials, magnetohydraudynamic (MHD) effect for PbLi fluid, safety issues of coolant when heat exchanger breaks, and purification technology of PbLi alloy, etc..
Dual Functional Lead Lithium (DFLL) blanket is designed as one of the DEMO blanket in China, and a multi-functional PbLi loop DRAGON-IV was built to study the R&D issues of DFLL blanket technologies. In order to study the MHD effect, the pressure drop was tested by pressure differential meters in the test section under 2T magnetic field, which was validated by MTC code, one validation MHD simulation software developed by FDS team. The corrosion experiment of CLAM steel, the structural material of China DEMO blanket, was carried out in the flowing PbLi under 1-2T magnetic field for a thousand hours. The confirmed experiment of impurities type and quantity in PbLi alloy was implemented preliminarily, which was very important for the purification system design and application in future. The above experimental results were achieved to support the development of the blanket system, too.
In this manuscript, the details of DRAGON-IV was introduced, the related experimental issues of PbLi coolant were elaborated, and the experimental results were discussed for further application, which support strongly the design and development of engineering technologies for China PbLi blanket.
Keywords: DFLL blanket; DRAGON-IV; MHD effect; Corrosion; Impurity type
Co-authors
Hua Huang
(Institute of Nuclear Energy Safety Technology (INEST), Hefei, Anhui, China)
Lujun Sun
(Institute of Nuclear Energy Safety Technology (INEST), Hefei, Anhui, China)
Zhiqiang Zhu
(Institute of Nuclear Energy Safety Technology (INEST), Hefei, Anhui, China)
Zi Meng
(Institute of Nuclear Energy Safety Technology (INEST), Hefei, Anhui, China)
Zunqi Xiao
(Institute of Nuclear Energy Safety Technology (INEST), Hefei, Anhui, China)