MHD effects of liquid metal flows through multiple electrically coupling ducts with U-turn bends in fusion blankets

Abstract

The investigation of liquid metal (LM) magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) flows through multiple electrically coupling ducts with U-turn bends is of crucial importance for accurately predicting the thermal-hydraulic performance of LM blankets in fusion reactors. Moreover, this duct configuration is often adopted in liquid blanket designs. Here, the combination effects of the MHD coupling, 3D MHD and inclined external magnetic fields on LM MHD flows through the multiple coupling ducts with different aspect ratios and wall conductance ratios are systematically investigated by numerical simulations. The results indicate that the MHD pressure gradient caused by MHD coupling effect decreases but the 3D MHD pressure gradient increases firstly and then decreases as the inclined angles of external magnetic fields increase. In addition, the results also indicate that the normalized pressure gradient can be reduced by increasing the wall conductance ratio (C_w) through the increase of the wall thickness. Furthermore, an important finding is that the pressure gradients caused by the MHD coupling decrease with the increases of aspect ratios (b/a) of ducts, while the 3D MHD pressure gradient when b/a=16 increases to an excessive large degree about 40 times of the pressure gradient in a single conductive duct. The related investigation results will provide a theoretical support for the liquid blanket designs in fusion reactors and deepen our understanding on the LM MHD effects.