Thermal-hydraulic and thermo-mechanical simulations of Water-Heavy Liquid Metal interactions towards the DEMO WCLL breeding blanket design

Abstract The Water-Cooled Lithium Lead breeding blanket concept foresees the eutectic lithium-lead (Pb-15.7Li) alloy being cooled by pressurized sub-cooled water (temperature 295–328 °C; pressure 15.5 MPa) flowing in double wall tubes. Therefore, the interaction between the Pb-15.7Li and water (e.g. tube rupture) represents one of the main safety concerns for the design and safety analysis. Available LIFUS5/Mod2 experimental data are employed to assess the performances of thermal-hydraulic and thermo-mechanic codes. Thermal-hydraulic simulations, by SIMMER-III code, are focused on the prediction of the thermodynamic interaction among the fluids. ABAQUS Finite Element code, used for the design activities, is adotped to perform the thermo-mechanic simulations, calculating the stress and strain fields of LIFUS5/Mod2 main vessel during the experiments. Code results are compared with the experimental data and the outcomes from the analyses are discussed, in order to derive conclusions on the code assessment.