Modelling of the thermal-mechanical behaviour of a single size beryllium pebble bed

The Helium Cooled Pebble Bed (HCPB) Blanket for fusion power reactors and the ITER breeding blanket are based on the use of pebble beds of lithium ceramics as breeder and beryllium as neutron multiplier. Experimental activities were performed at Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe concerning the measurement of pebble bed heat transfer parameters. At the Department of Nuclear Engineering of the University of Palermo, the experimental results have been reproduced by means of the ABAQUS finite element code. Moreover, a thermal-mechanical theoretical model has been developed for single size beryllium pebble beds. In the paper the results from the numerical and theoretical analyses and the comparison with experimental data are presented and critically discussed.