Cryogenic hydrogen cooling of heated moderator vessel

In ESS, a pulsed proton beam of 5 MW mean power will hit a tungsten target to generate neutrons by spallation. The pulses are 2.86 ms long and occur with 14 Hz; the power within a pulse is 125 MW. Only centimeters from the target, the neutrons are moderated by liquid hydrogen in aluminium vessels. The deposited power heats the surrounding structures and fluids which are circulated and cooled. The hydrogen is operating at 15 bar and average temperature between 17 and 21 K, i.e. above the critical pressure 12.8 bar, but below the critical temperature 32.9 K. During the pulses, the peak heat deposition in the aluminium is 15 W/cm3 and in the hydrogen 4 W/cm3. If the cooling of the aluminium is neglected during one pulse, the temperature increases to 34 K. That is above the critical temperature, where physical properties change strongly with temperature. Therefore the conjugate heat transfer has to be investigated in detail. This work includes 1D principal transient calculations of a general configuration as well as CFD simulations of the heating and cooling of a specific design. The 1D calculations are performed using GNU/Octave and the CFD using ANSYS/CFX. It is concluded that with an inlet temperature of 17 K, the wall temperature can be kept below the critical temperature in the general configuration and sufficient cooling can be ensured in the investigated specific design. (Less)