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Liquid metal magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) flows through the electrical coupling rectangular ducts are investigated based on a fully developed modeling. Numerical simulations of four different coupling MHD duct flows are carried out to get the results of the MHD pressure drop and the velocity distribution. The first and second cases are that the coupling rectangular ducts are arranged along the direction of external magnetic field, the flow direction in the two ducts is the same in case 1 but it is opposite in case 2; in the third and fourth cases, another coupling duct is extended along the perpendicular direction of the external magnetic field, the flow direction is identical in case 3, but it is opposite in case 4. Numerical results of the velocity and the induced electrical current distributions in the cross sections of the coupling ducts are given in those four different cases, it is indicated that the external magnetic field has a different effect on the flow pattern in those four cases. The MHD pressure drop in those four different cases is compared with the result of one normal rectangular duct flow, the MHD pressure drop of case 1 is reduced compare with the result of one normal duct MHD flows and result of case 4 is closed to one normal duct case, but the results of cases 2 and 3 are larger than it, especially for case 2 it is several times larger than the result of one normal duct flow. In addition, the MHD pressure gradients in those four cases decrease with the increase of the wall conductance ratios when the other conditions are the same. In the case, the three coupling duct flows when the flow direction of the middle duct is opposite, the strong magnetic field has very significant effect on the flow pattern in the middle coupling duct, and the MHD pressure gradient in the middle duct can be dozens of times bigger than that of one normal single duct flow. These results should be considered in the future liquid blanket design.

In this work, thermal ageing of the reduced activation ferritic/martensitic steel CLF-1 with a nitrogen content of 0.025% has been performed at temperatures of 823 K and 873 K for 6000 h. Mechanical properties (hardness, tensile and Charpy impact) and microstructure characterisation has been carried out. After thermal ageing treatments, the steels showed similar values of hardness and tensile properties and a slight deterioration of impact properties were observed. After long term thermal ageing, the M23C6-type precipitation coarsens and agglomerates along lath and grain boundaries. Compared with steels that have lower nitrogen content, the coarsening and agglomeration of M23C6 in the steels with higher nitrogen content is much lower and the steel shows higher microstructural stability. (C) 2013 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.

Beryllium and tungsten have been selected as the plasma facing materials of the ITER first wall (FW) and divertor chamber, respectively. China, as a participant in ITER, will share the manufacturing tasks of ITER first-wall mockups with the European Union and Russia. Therefore ITER-grade beryllium has been developed in China and a kind of vacuum hot-pressed (VHP) beryllium, CN-G01, was characterized for both physical, and thermo-mechanical properties and high heat flux performance, which indicated an equivalent performance to U.S. grade S-65C beryllium, a reference grade beryllium of ITER. Consequently CN-G01 beryllium has been accepted as the armor material of ITER-FW blankets. In addition, a modification of tungsten by TiC dispersion strengthening was investigated and a W–TiC alloy with TiC content of 0.1 wt.% has been developed. Both surface hardness and recrystallization measurements indicate its re-crystallization temperature approximately at 1773 K. Deuterium retention and thermal desorption behaviors of pure tungsten and the TiC alloy were also measured by deuterium ion irradiation of 1.7 keV energy to the fluence of 0.5–5 × 10 18 D/cm 2 ; a main desorption peak at around 573 K was found and no significant difference was observed between pure tungsten and the tungsten alloy. Further characterization of the tungsten alloy is in progress.

Vacuum plasma sprayed tungsten coating on graphite and copper substrates has been prepared. VPS-W coated graphite has multilayered silicon and tungsten interface pre-deposited by physical vapor deposition (PVD) and VPS-W coated copper has graded transition interlayer. VPS-W coating was characterized, and then the high heat flux properties of the coating were examined. Experimental results indicated that both VPS-W coated graphite and VPS-W coated copper could endure 1000 cycles without visible failure under a heat flux of approximately 5 MW/m 2 absorbed power density and 5 s pulse duration. A comparison between the present VPS-W coated graphite and VPS-W coated carbon fiber composite (CX-2002U) with Re interface made by Plansee Aktiengesllshaft was carried out. Results show that both Re and Si are suitable as intermediate layer for tungsten coating on carbon substrates.

The advanced limiter-divertor plasma-facing system (ALPS) has been studied for several years, but the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) stability of free surface jet flow in a gradient transverse magnetic field is one of the key remaining issues. Recently, some experiments on jet flow were performed with a 0.2- to 1.95-T gradient magnetic field and 2.9, 3.24, and 4.10 m/s velocities for a flow diameter of 6 mm. The results indicated that the transverse gradient magnetic field strongly shortens the jet flow range and the shape of the cross section of the jet flow deforms from round to elliptical and finally becomes a bowed-down shape in the jet flow downstream under these experimental conditions. This paper includes simple modeling of jet flow MHD stability in a gradient transverse magnetic field, which derives the velocity and the area of the cross section of the jet flow along the flow path. The theoretical expected values are in good agreement with experimental results.

Tungsten divertor plates in fusion reactors will be subject to helium bombardment. Helium retention and thermal desorption is a concerned issue in controlling helium ash. In the present study, fluence dependence of thermal desorption behavior of helium in tungsten was studied at different irradiation temperatures and ion energies. Results showed that helium desorption could start at ∼400 K with increasing fluence, while no noticeable peaks were detected at low fluence. Total helium desorption reached a saturation value at high fluence range, which was not sensitive to irradiation temperature or ion energy for the conditions evaluated. Surface modifications caused by either ion irradiation or thermal desorption were observed by SEM. The relationship of surface modifications and helium desorption behavior was discussed. Some special features of elevated irradiation temperature and lower ion energy were also indicated.

The hydrogen embrittlement behavior of a V4Cr4Ti alloy (NIFS-Heat 2) has been studied using tensile tests, impact tests and J integral tests. Hydrogen in the alloy was high up to 310 wppm by exposures in a hydrogen atmosphere. The alloy showed different sensitivities to the hydrogen embrittlement in the tests. Hydrogen-induced solid solution hardening occured but caused slight loss in the ductility of the alloy before 215 wppm H in the tensile test. However, the impact toughness, J 1c and the tearing modulus ( T mat ) decreased largely with increasing hydrogen concentration, indicated that the critical hydrogen concentration required to embrittle the alloy might be lower than 130 wppm. The fracture characteristics varied a lot for the different specimens. All these differences were thought being resulted from the stress concentration and the stress assisted hydrogen diffusion in the compact tension specimen and in the necking area of a tensile specimen.

A pulsed electron beam test was used to simulate the thermal response of plasma facing materials under high heat loads during plasma disruptions, particularly for relatively 'long' duration off-normal events such as plasma vertical displacement events. The erosion and erosion products of purified tungsten made by powder metallurgy (PM-W), W and B 4 C plasma sprayed coatings on CFC or copper and C/C composite were investigated. The time evolution of the target current indicates that the erosion products or screening clouds partly or completely shield the incident electron beam, leading to a reduction of the target current and changes in the target current profile. The weight loss of PM-W is smaller than that of the tungsten coating or C/C composite, which is in agreement with the erosion behavior. Erosion products indicate that evaporation is a major erosion mechanism of PM-W, and exfoliation and particle emission are the dominant erosion mechanisms of carbon-based materials and W plasma sprayed coatings.

Several V–Cr–Ti–Al–Si alloys were studied with respect to their mechanical performances after exposure to hydrogen environments. The alloys were developed in China by using a melting process in a magnetic floating furnace. Most of the alloys had a high oxygen concentration from 700 to 1100 wppm since the forging and hot rolling were performed in air at elevated temperature. The results showed a synergistic effect of oxygen and hydrogen. The ductility loss correlated largely with the hydrogen concentration up to 113 wppm. Both V4Ti and V4TiSi showed a relatively higher resistance to hydrogen embrittlement in comparison with other alloys such as V4Cr4Ti and V4Ti3Al.

Plasma irradiation experiments of several kinds of carbon materials and molybdenum were performed in the HL-1M tokamak. The samples emerged into plasma by a depth of 1.5 cm with an angle of 45° between sample surface and magnetic field. After ≈300 plasma discharges with ohmic and NBI heating, melting, microstructure of thin flakes, gas holes and bubbles were found on the surface of molybdenum. No obvious damages were found on the surface of carbon materials, only carbon fibers of 3D-C/C composite were preferentially eroded. Weight changes indicated that most of the samples had little weight loss but few of the samples had large weight increments in which some droplet-shape deposits were found on their surface. Most of the erosion and re-depositions occurred at random on the surface of samples implied that the dominant factor influenced the erosion and re-deposition of plasma facing materials was tokamak plasma disruption.

In the last decade, liquid metal (LM) blanket-related key issues, such as the magnetohydrodynamics due to reactor off-normal shutdown, LM velocity two-dimensional effect, manifold three-dimensional effect, insulator coating imperfection effect, and so on, have been investigated in experiments and theoretic analysis in Southwestern Institute of Physics (SWIP). Some results were first observed such as the two-dimensional effect and the instabilities due to insulator coating imperfection in this field. These results also related to the advanced limiter-divertor plasma system. In this paper, we review the progress made by SWIP in this research field.

Several V–Cr–Ti–Al–Si alloys were studied or reviewed of their mechanical properties after their exposure to oxygen, hydrogen and neutron irradiation environments. The results showed that the oxidation kinetic of V4Cr4Ti alloy exhibited parabolic behavior in a flowing argon gas with low partial pressure oxygen over the temperatures from 450 to 600 °C. Most of the alloys showed ductility losses with the increasing oxygen concentration with an exception of V4Ti3Al. Strong sensitivity to hydrogen embrittlement was found for the alloys with the combination of high oxygen concentration and high mechanical strength. It was found that the effect of hydrogen and neutron irradiation on the uniform deformation capability caused by their hardening are equivalent with that of the strain hardening. Fine grain was recommended for the alloys to improve their properties against hydrogen embrittlement and neutron irradiation induced ductility loss.

It is important that the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) flow velocity in the cross section of the junction region of a manifold pipe be related to materials compatibility, heat transfer, and MHD pressure drop. Experimental results are given of the velocity distribution across the circular pipe on the center plane in the region of the junction of a manifold pipe and the MHD pressure drop due to the junction MHD effects. The results show that both the boundary layer and core velocity distribution on the center plane of the cross section of the junction region of the manifold pipe increase with an increase of the Hartmann number M and that the velocity at the boundary is jet flow and in the core is flat flow. However, the approach theory expects the core velocity distribution to decrease with an increase of M and never in jet flow at the boundary layer. For the downstream case, the velocity distribution is strongly affected by the junction of the manifold pipe only in a half area of the cross section and for the upstream case in the whole cross-section area. The factor for MHD pressure drops due to the junction MHD effects is also carried out,more » which explains the experimental data.« less

Standard and Ti- and Nb-modified 316 SS specimens were irradiated with electrons in a high voltage electron microscope (HVEM) up to a dose of 40 dpa at 823 K. Void growth and carbide precipitate processes during irradiation were observed in situ and photographed. The experiment showed that 0.53% Ti-modified 316 SS had good resistance to void swelling, which is due to the small void size and low growth rate. The cold work did not increase the void swelling. In contrast, 0.49% and 0.78% Nb-modified 316 SS showed much higher void swelling than the others studied. However, the cold working of Nb-modified steels suppressed void swelling.