Thermal-hydraulics design comparisons for the tandem mirror hybrid reactor blanket

Conference · Mon Sep 01 04:00:00 EDT 1980

OSTI ID:6936602

Wong, C. P.C.; Yang, Y. S.; Schultz, K. R.

The Tandem Mirror Hybrid Reactor (TMHR) is a cylindrical reactor, and the fertile materials and tritium breeding fuel elements can be arranged with radial or axial orientation in the blanket module. Thermal-hydraulics performance comparisons were made between plate, axial rod and radial rod fuel geometrices. The three configurations result in different coolant/void fractions and different clad/structure fractions. The higher void fraction in the two rod designs means that these blankets will have to be thicker than the plate design blanket in order to achieve the same level of nuclear interactions. Their higher structural fractions will degrade the uranium breeding ratio and energy multiplication factor of the design. One difficulty in the thermal-hydraulics analysis of the plate design was caused by the varying energy multiplication of the blanket during the lifetime of the plate which forced the use of designs that operated in the transition flow regime at some point during life. To account for this, an approach was adopted from Gas Cooled Fast Reactor (GCFR) experience for the pressure drop calculation and the corresponding heat transfer coefficient that was used for the film drop thermal calculation. Because of the superior nuclear performance, the acceptable thermal-hydraulic characteristics and the mechanical design feasibility, the plate geometry concept was chosen for the reference gas-cooled TMHR blanket design.

• Research Organization: General Atomic Co., San Diego, CA (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: AT03-76ET51011
• OSTI ID: 6936602
• Report Number(s): GA-A-16069; CONF-801011-24
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
700204* -- Fusion Power Plant Technology-- Cooling Systems
BREEDING BLANKETS
FLUID MECHANICS
FUEL CYCLE
FUEL ELEMENTS
FUEL RODS
HYBRID REACTORS
HYDRAULICS
MAGNETIC MIRROR TYPE REACTORS
MECHANICS
REACTOR COMPONENTS
THERMODYNAMICS
THERMONUCLEAR REACTORS
TMR REACTORS