Conceptual design of coolant circuits and thermal stress analysis for JA-DEMO divertor

Abstract

Engineering design of the JA-DEMO divertor concept, i.e. double-coolant circuits of 200°C coolant (5MPa) for high heat load targets (CuCrZr-pipe) and 290°C coolant (15MPa) for high neutron load Plasma Facing Units (F82H-pipe) and cassette body (CB), has been developed. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) calculation of the coolant distributions to targets, baffles, reflectors, dome and to CB was performed in order to determine the feasibility of the key concepts. (i) All PFU support designs for the coolant distribution to PFUs were optimized to reduce variation of the flow velocity (V_cool) at the inlet of PFUs less than 5 – 6 %. Parallel coolant circuit design for the dome and reflectors was also developed, and mass flows were adjusted by orifices and the main mass flow rate. (ii) A new cooling concept with two layers of puddles and fins at the side routes was proposed for CB. The design provided V_cool = 0.55 – 1.27 m⋅s⁻¹ and average V_cool = 1.04 m⋅s⁻¹ with the fin transparent ratio of 0.1. It was enough to exhaust the nuclear heat, and the design issues were identified under the coolant condition. (iii) Heat exhaust on fish-scale surface target and stress-strain of the CuCrZr pipe were investigated under assuming a DEMO divertor condition. Steady-state heat load at wet region by plasma (q_t^wet) was restricted below 13.5 MWm⁻² to avoid W-recrystallization. In the stress-strain cycle of higher q_t^wet ∼15.3 MWm⁻², maximum tensile σ (120 – 200 MPa) and total change in strain during the heat load cycle (Δε ∼0.25 %) were relatively small. These evaluations suggested that such high heat load cycle may not be a critical lifetime issue, but reduction in T_cool is preferable to handle ITER-like slow transients such as 15 – 20 MWm⁻².