Hydraulic analysis of cylindrical Flibe jets in a HYLIFE-II ICF reactor

摘要

In HYLIFE, a conceptual design of inertial confinement fusion reactors, a liquid jet array is proposed to protect the reactor chamber from fusion radiation. During the pulse of fusion the jets will sustain severe neutron and X-ray heating. Since the high energy neutrons can penetrate the material fairly well, they induce a nearly uniform and very large pressure rise within each jet. This energy is deposited within nanoseconds or much faster than the time scale for fluid dynamic relaxation. The analysis of the relaxation of the liquid jets in a HYLIFE reactor is therefore important for understanding the configuration of the liquid blanket, which is directly related with the vapor and liquid impacts on the chamber wall. The correct estimation of these impacts will allow designers to optimize the cost and strength of the reactor. The calculations for the cylindrical lithium jets in the HYLIFE-I reactor were done previously by using a compressible flow mode and a soft sphere equation of state developed by Young. A similar equation of state model for Flibe, the HYLIFE-II blanket material, was recently developed. This equation of state allows us to use the same compressible analysis code to calculate the pressure field in the Flibe jets and to estimate the upper bound of Flibe tension limit. With these results we can predict the possibility of the liquid breakup and the momentum distribution generated by relaxation and breakup.