Thermo-mechanical modelling of pebble bed–wall interfaces

In HCPB blankets, interfaces between pebble beds and structural material provide for an additional heat resistance, which depends on local mechanical stresses and temperature. The heat transfer coefficient of pebble bed–wall interfaces was investigated by modelling particle–wall contact, radiation effect, and interstitial gas. The predictions of the model were compared to the experimental data. Interfacial modelling as presented by this paper, which takes the coupled thermo-mechanical behaviour of the interface into account, opens up the possibility to implement these effects in a finite element simulation of a structure containing pebble beds.