Thermal-hydraulic analysis on the whole module of water cooled ceramic breeder blanket for CFETR

Abstract The Water Cooled Ceramic Breeder blanket (WCCB) is being researched for Chinese Fusion Engineering Test Reactor (CFETR). The thermal-hydraulic analysis is essential because the blanket should remove the high heat flux from the plasma and the volumetric heat generated by neutrons. In this paper, the detailed three dimensional (3D) thermal hydraulic analysis on the whole module of WCCB blanket has been performed by Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) method, which is capable of solving conjugate heat transfer between solid structure and fluid. The main results, including temperature field, distribution of mass flow rate and coolant pressure drop, have been calculated simultaneously. These provides beneficial guidance data for the further structural optimization and for the design arrangement of primary and secondary circuit. Under the total heat source of 1.23 MW, the coolant mass flow rate of 5.457 kg/s is required to make coolant water corresponding to the Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) condition (15.5 MPa, 285 °C–325 °C), generating the total coolant pressure drop (△P) of 0.467 MPa. The results show that the present structural design can make all the materials effectively cooled to the allowable temperature range, except for a few small modifications on the both sides of FW. The main components, including the first wall (FW), cooling plates (CPs), side wall (SWs)&stiffening plates (SPs) and the manifold(1–4), dominate 4.7%/41.7%/13%/40.6% of the total pressure drop, respectively. Additionally, the mass flow rate of each channel has been obtained, showing the peak relative deviation of 3.4% and 2% from the average for the paratactic channels and components separately. Generally, the results indicate that the present design of WCCB blanket can meet the requirements of thermal hydraulics.