Structured porous media for high heat flux fusion applications

The use of structured porous media is a proposed technique to achieve higher heat transfer coefficients by increasing the specific surface area for heat transfer while aiming to maintain acceptable pressure drop and pumping power. The general design strategy is to minimize the coolant flow path through the porous medium while optimizing the porous medium characteristics to minimize the friction pressure drop for a given heat transfer performance. A comprehensive thermo-fluid model called MERLOT was used to assess the use of porous heat transfer media for fusion plasma facing component applications. A parametric study was performed to assess the relative importance on the heat transfer performance of key design parameters including the solid conductivity, the porosity magnitude and distribution, the microstructure characteristic dimension, and the local heat transfer coefficient. The analysis was carried out for different incident heat fluxes of up to 30 MW/m² with the goal of identifying particularly attractive sets of design parameters for plasma facing components.