Thermal mixing enhancement of liquid metal MHD free-surface flow by optimizing vortex generator arrays

Koji Kusumi, Tomoaki Kunugi, Takehiko Yokomine, Zensaku Kawara, Shoki Nakamura, Egemen Kolemen, Hantao Ji

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Scopus citations

Abstract

Liquid divertor concepts in fusion reactor research have been widely studied. Recently, thermal mixing enhancement of the locally heated free-surface of liquid metal MHD (Magneto-Hydro-Dynamics) film flow using one vortex generator was proposed and investigated by the authors. In this study, an inline arrangement of many hemispherical protrusions to generate many vortices in their wakes was proposed, and the transport characteristics of high temperature fluid at the free-surface to the bottom (i.e., thermal mixing) in liquid metal MHD film flow was investigated experimentally. The experiments for three streamwise pitch lengths between the protrusions under various transverse magnetic field strengths (B = 0.00–0.33T) for two flowrate conditions were conducted. As the results, the heat flux distributions on the bottom wall of the film flow and the efficiency of heat transport showed the existence of the optimum streamwise pitch length for the thermal mixing enhancement even under relatively high transverse magnetic field. Therefore, the inline arrangement of many hemispherical protrusions can be considered as one of the candidates for thermal mixing enhancement methods of liquid metal MHD free-surface flow application.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)223-227
Number of pages5
JournalFusion Engineering and Design
Volume136
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 2018

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Civil and Structural Engineering
  • Nuclear Energy and Engineering
  • General Materials Science
  • Mechanical Engineering

Keywords

  • Experiment
  • Hemispherical protrusion
  • Inline arrangement
  • Liquid metal MHD film flow
  • Thermal mixing

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