Design, fabrication, and testing of helium cooled high heat flux module
- General Atomics, San Diego, CA (United States)
General Atomics (GA) has considerable expertise in use of helium cooling due to its high temperature gas cooled reactor experience. In order to prove the feasibility of helium cooling at high heat flux levels of above 5 MW/m{sup 2}, GA designed, fabricated, and tested a helium cooled module. The module was sized to have a heat flux surface of 25 mm wide and 80 mm long due to test setup limitations on maximum deposited power. The module was made from dispersion strengthened copper. The fabricated geometry was slightly different than the optimized design due to constraints of machining. The fabrication was done by electro discharge matching. The testing was carried out at the electron beam test facility of Sandia National Laboratory, Albuquerque (SNLA). It was necessary to reduce the area of heat flux deposition at higher heat flux due to limitations in the power capability of the electron beam. It is estimated that a heat transfer coefficient of about 40,000 W/m{sup 2}-C was achieved during these tests. The pumping power calculated from flow rate and pressure drop measurement was about 160 W for the test with 9 MW/m{sup 2} surface heat flux, which was less than 1% of the 18 kW power removed. As a result of this effort the authors conclude that, helium cooling of high heat flux components is feasible without requiring a very large helium pressure or a large pumping power.
- OSTI ID:
- 524790
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-960848--; ISBN 0-8194-2243-6
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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