Transient thermo-hydraulical/thermo-mechanical analysis of the HCLL-TBM for ITER

Abstract This paper concerns the design calculations and performance evaluation of the helium cooled lithium lead-test blanket module (HCLL-TBM) for ITER. Previous works have shown the importance of integrated multi-physics approaches for enabling correct TBM design and specifications. Particularly, this work presents the results of a transient thermo-fluid/thermal-stress analysis in which the thermo-hydraulical and the thermo-mechanical calculations are sequentially and recursively coupled. The above procedure has been used to study the thermo-mechanical behaviour of the HCLL-TBM taking into account the transient loading conditions due to the pulsed plasma operation in ITER. New finite elements (FE) models have been specifically developed for this task: all calculations have been carried out in three dimensions with representative CAD models, including detailed descriptions of all relevant TBM components. Temperature evolutions in the coolant, structural and breeder materials have been calculated. The results of the FE calculations have been analyzed with respect to thermo-hydraulics and thermo-mechanical stresses in order to verify the compliance with the established design criteria (maximum temperature in the structural material and RCC-MR rules with SDC-IC complements).