A new procedure for solving the transport of corrosion products in liquid lead bismuth eutectic loop

This article presents an extension of the Half Boundary Method (HBM) for solving two-dimensional mass transfer problems in a lead-bismuth eutectic (LBE) loop. We propose a procedure that integrates the Finite Volume Method (FVM) with the HBM coupling algorithm to address flow and mass transfer issues. The FVM is used to solve the velocity field, while a small number of nodes are selected within the solution domain to apply HBM for solving the concentration field. By reducing the number of grids required by HBM, the maximum order of the matrix is also reduced, leading to savings in computational storage and improved efficiency. The proposed procedure is applied to solve the transport problem of corrosion products (Fe) in the hot pipe section of the UPBEAT circuit. By comparing different flow and oxygen control conditions, we find that the corrosion rate increases with velocity. Under oxygen control, the concentration of corrosion products is only 0.5 % of that under anaerobic conditions, and the corrosion rate is reduced to only 0.19 %. These findings significantly reduce the corrosion rate, making long-term pipeline use feasible.