Integrated thermo-fluid analysis towards helium flow path design for an ITER solid breeder blanket module

The successful design and development of a complex system, like the ITER test blanket module (TBM) warrants the need of extensive computer aided engineering (CAE) activities. In this light, a sophisticated numerical flow solver (‘SC/Tetra’ by CRADLE®), with a robust CAD interface, has been used to develop and evaluate helium coolant flow schemes for a solid breeder test blanket module design currently proposed by the US for testing in ITER. The traits of a particular cooling strategy for the TBM, namely the exit temperature of coolant, overall pressure drop, uniformity of temperature in the structure, robustness against transients, etc. can only be predicted by carrying out a complete three dimensional thermal-fluid analysis of the system in its entirety including all the structural and fluid components. The primary objective of this paper is to introduce the procedure for carrying out complex thermo-fluid analysis using the complete three dimensional CAD models of the TBM to evaluate the performance of TBM cooling schemes and to illustrate the way in which the results from these analyses can be useful towards a systematic design of an effective cooling solution for the test blanket module.