TY - GEN
T1 - Fully Implicit Conjugate Heat Transfer Analysis of the ARC-class Vacuum Vessel
AU - Sircar, Arpan
AU - Borowiec, Katarzyna
AU - Bae, Jin Whan
AU - Badalassi, Vittorio
AU - Solberg, Jerome
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Proceedings of the 20th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics, NURETH 2023. All rights reserved.
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - A coupled simulation of fusion device blankets, including neutronics, thermal hydraulics, and thermo-mechanics is expected to speed up the design cycle of fusion device concepts. In this work, we demonstrate tight implicit coupling of conjugate heat transfer, using the open-source computational fluid dynamics software OpenFOAM for thermo-fluid mechanics, and Diablo for thermo-solid mechanics. The heat transfer analysis is performed by volumetric energy deposition from neutronic calculations using the Monte Carlo N-particle code on both solid and fluid parts of the vacuum vessel. An additional heat flux is imposed on the first wall, estimated from the design power of the device. The tight coupling is realized through the open-source coupling library preCICE, and it was tested on the vacuum vessel of the ARC-class tokamak design by Commonwealth Fusion Systems. The features of the coupling and the influence of different coupling parameters such as coupling schemes, acceleration techniques and convergence criteria are discussed. The coupled simulation results are compared to a thermal hydraulics simulation that includes only the fluid domains (the liquid immersion molten salt blanket and cooling channel) to demonstrate the usefulness of the coupled simulation. Further analysis was performed to identify hot spots for subsequent design improvement. This work introduces a concept for integrating conjugate electromagnetics and fluid/solid mechanics (e.g., allowing for deformation of the cooling channel walls) with our present approach for future analysis.
AB - A coupled simulation of fusion device blankets, including neutronics, thermal hydraulics, and thermo-mechanics is expected to speed up the design cycle of fusion device concepts. In this work, we demonstrate tight implicit coupling of conjugate heat transfer, using the open-source computational fluid dynamics software OpenFOAM for thermo-fluid mechanics, and Diablo for thermo-solid mechanics. The heat transfer analysis is performed by volumetric energy deposition from neutronic calculations using the Monte Carlo N-particle code on both solid and fluid parts of the vacuum vessel. An additional heat flux is imposed on the first wall, estimated from the design power of the device. The tight coupling is realized through the open-source coupling library preCICE, and it was tested on the vacuum vessel of the ARC-class tokamak design by Commonwealth Fusion Systems. The features of the coupling and the influence of different coupling parameters such as coupling schemes, acceleration techniques and convergence criteria are discussed. The coupled simulation results are compared to a thermal hydraulics simulation that includes only the fluid domains (the liquid immersion molten salt blanket and cooling channel) to demonstrate the usefulness of the coupled simulation. Further analysis was performed to identify hot spots for subsequent design improvement. This work introduces a concept for integrating conjugate electromagnetics and fluid/solid mechanics (e.g., allowing for deformation of the cooling channel walls) with our present approach for future analysis.
KW - ARC-class fusion device
KW - Conjugate heat transfer
KW - fusion vacuum vessel
KW - implicit coupling
KW - OpenFOAM
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85202959253&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.13182/NURETH20-40569
DO - 10.13182/NURETH20-40569
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85202959253
T3 - Proceedings of the 20th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics, NURETH 2023
SP - 4560
EP - 4573
BT - Proceedings of the 20th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics, NURETH 2023
PB - American Nuclear Society
T2 - 20th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics, NURETH 2023
Y2 - 20 August 2023 through 25 August 2023
ER -