Applied Thermal Engineering 100 (2016) 1274–1291

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Applied Thermal Engineering

j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w. e l s e v i e r. c o m / l o c a t e / a p t h e r m e n g

Research Paper

Computational fluid dynamic studies on plasma facing heat sink

concept for fusion tokamak application
Sandeep Rimza a,*, Samir Khirwadkar a, Karupanna Velusamy b
a Divertor and Firstwall Technology Development Division, Institute for Plasma Research (IPR), Bhat – 382428, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India
b Mechanics and Hydraulics Division, Reactor Design Group (RDG), Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR), Kalpakkam – 603102, Tamilnadu,
India

H I G H L I G H T S

• A modular divertor heat sink concept is proposed for fusion tokamak application.
• Effects of important parameters on the heat transfer characteristics are critically discussed.
• The use of multiple nozzles of various shapes is investigated by 3-dimensional CFD studies.
• Thermo-mechanical analysis is performed toward ensuring acceptability of the design from structural integrity consideration.

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Article history: Development of an efficient divertor heat sink concept capable of extracting intense heat flux while main-
Received 21 October 2015 taining temperatures and thermo-mechanical stress levels within allowable limits is a challenging task
Accepted 28 February 2016 to meet in the scenario of the future fusion power plant known as DEMO. Typically, divertor is expected
Available online 7 March 2016
to extract a steady state heat flux up to 10 MW/m2. In the present study, an efficient divertor concept
based on helium gas cooling has been proposed for the fusion grade tokamak. The effects of critical thermal
Keywords:
hydraulic parameters and geometrical parameters on the heat transfer characteristics of the divertor module
Divertor
are studied as a function of Reynolds number (Re). This includes critical parameters, viz., thimble diam-
Fusion reactor
Thimble eter (DT), nozzle diameter (DN), the ratio of nozzle-to-wall space and nozzle diameter (H/DN) and nozzle
Pumping power shape. Elliptical nozzles at specific orientation are found to give the best performance, whereas trian-
Stresses gular nozzles are found to give the worst performance for identical Reynolds numbers. Similarly, a minimum
Heat transfer thimble temperature and pressure drop in the circuit is achieved at H/DN ~1.66. The proposed design is
found to have a margin of 10%, i.e., capable of handling 11 MW/m2 against target heat flux values of 10 MW/
m2. The stress values arising out of temperature gradient and pressures are found to be within acceptable
limits, demonstrating the reliability of the proposed concept.
© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction A number of helium-cooled divertor designs have already been

Helium cooled divertor design is considered as one of the po-
tential options for future fusion reactors known as DEMO [1]. This
is mainly due to its inert nature, compatibility with plasma and
ability to operate at higher pressures and temperatures. Addition-
ally, helium has favorable neutronic properties, which are preferred
from safety aspects. However, due to its poor density and thermal
conductivity, high pressures have to be adopted to achieve an ef-
ficient cooling desired for extracting high heat flux from the divertor
system in a DEMO reactor. Toward this, a new modular divertor
concept has been investigated in the present paper.
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +918141511655; fax: +917923962277.
E-mail address: sandeepr@ipr.res.in (S. Rimza).
reported in the literature. Diegele et al. [2] investigated the modular
He-cooled divertor design for power plant application. From their
studies, they found that modular concept has the potential of re-
moving very high heat flux at a reasonable pumping power. Visca
et al. [3] and Pizzuto et al. [4] devised a thermal shield concept for
the DEMO divertor application, and found that their design can
handle a heat flux of ~10 MW/m2. Rimza et al. [5–7] have per-
formed numerical and experimental studies on divertor finger mock-
up with an improved heat transfer technique. They showed that the
capability of divertor to handle heat flux increase largely by the use
of the sectorial extended surfaces. Ihli et al. [8] and Končar et al.
[9] analyzed an advanced helium cooled divertor concept, and the
effect of nozzle diameter on the thermal performance, respective-
ly. The results suggested that equal sized nozzle decreases the peak
thimble temperature. An experimental investigation to study the
effect of nozzle inlet chamfering on heat transfer distribution over

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2016.02.132
1359-4311/© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 S. Rimza et al./Applied Thermal Engineering 100 (2016) 1274–1291 1275

flat plate was performed by Attalla and Salem [10]. They showed
that the Nusselt numbers have the highest value for the square
edge inlet nozzle. Whelan and Robinson [11] investigated the
effects of nozzle geometry in liquid jet array impingement. They
found that chamfering and contouring the nozzle inlets result in a
significant decrease in the pressure drop across the nozzle plate.
Linares et al. [12] studied the suitability of supercritical CO2 Brayton
power cycles for low-temperature divertor fusion reactors cooled
by helium.
Gayton et al. [13] devised a plate-type divertor concept to ac-
commodate a surface heat load of ~10 MW/m2. They found that the
divertor with metallic foam significantly enhances heat transfer. Ihli
et al. [14] investigated a helium-cooled tube divertor concept for
a compact stellarator and tokamak configuration to accommodate
a heat flux value of ~10 MW/m2. Norajitra et al. [15,16] reported the
experimental verification of modular design and status of divertor
development for the DEMO reactor.
From the above brief review, it is observed that the helium cooled
divertor design has the capability to handle the high heat flux at a
reasonable pumping power. This paper describes a detailed design
study of a new modular divertor concept for the future tokamak
to sustain the steady state heat flux up to ~10 MW/m2. The perfor-
mance of heat transfer and fluid flow in divertor heat sink is
investigated by numerical simulation. Additionally, the effect of crit-
ical parameters like thimble diameter (DT), nozzle diameter (DN), the
ratio of nozzle-to-wall space with nozzle diameters (H/DN) and
various nozzle shapes on the heat transfer and pressure loss mech-
anism are also studied. The numerical simulations are carried out
using the CFD software ANSYS Fluent 14.0 [17].
2. Description of divertor heat sink concept
A schematic diagram of the proposed divertor module for fusion
reactor application is shown in Fig. 1. A divertor is a toroidally sym-
metric structure divided into a number of cassettes, for easier
handling and maintenance. A modular design has been developed
to reduce the thermal stresses, which allows a higher heat flux han-
dling capability. The plasma-facing components are exposed to
energetic plasma particles that lead to physical and chemical sput-
tering of the target surface and heat deposition. Tungsten (W) is

Heat Flux

Thermal
shield (W)

Nozzle

Jet cartridge

Inlet manifold Thimble (WL-10)

Outlet manifold
Heout HeIn
Heout

40mm

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of divertor heat sink and detailed view (All dimensions in mm).
1276 S. Rimza et al./Applied Thermal Engineering 100 (2016) 1274–1291

considered as the most promising divertor material, because it has 14.0 [17]. Heat transfer equations through solid and fluid are solved
excellent thermo-physical properties such as high melting point, low simultaneously. The fluid inside the divertor heat sink structure is
sputtering yield, high thermal conductivity, low-activation, etc. modeled as an ideal gas under steady flow. The governing equa-
[18,19]. tions for the flow and heat transfer in the fluid domain can be
As illustrated in Fig. 1, the plasma-facing surface of divertor is expressed as follows [25]:
made up of tungsten material with a sacrificial layer (~4 mm thick)
as the thermal shield. The thermal shield is not cooled directly, to • Continuity equation:
avoid the probability of crack formation. Thermal shield is brazed
on top of the thimble made of high ductility tungsten alloy (WL- ∂ (ρui )
=0 (1)
10). A high melting temperature filler material Pd-Ni 40 (1511 K) ∂x i
has been considered as the brazing filler between the mating sur-
faces [20–23]. A steel jet cartridge carrying the multiple nozzles is • Momentum equation:
placed concentrically inside the thimble for efficient heat transfer.
∂ (ρui ) ∂P ∂ ⎛ ∂u ⎞
The coolant fluid (He) enters through the inlet manifolds to the car- uj =− + ⎜ μ eff i ⎟ (2)
tridge, and accelerates through the multiple nozzles (DN = 0.7 mm). ∂x j ∂x i ∂x j ⎝ ∂x j ⎠
The helium jet impinges upon and cools the heated surface, then
flows down along the space (H = 1 mm) between the inner car- • Energy equation:
tridge to the outlet manifold as shown in Fig. 1. ∂ (ρCpui T ) ∂ ⎛ ∂T ⎞
= ⎜ K eff ⎟ (3)
∂x i ∂x i ⎝ ∂x i ⎠
2.1. General design constraint
In the solid, heat conduction equation for steady state temper-
The total allowable heat flux limit for the helium cooled divertor
ature field is given by:
heat sink is determined by the maximum temperature of the thimble,
the pumping power of the helium coolant gas and the thermo- ∂ ⎛ ∂T ⎞
mechanical stresses. The main design constraint is maximum thimble ⎜ Ks ⎟ =0 (4)
∂x i ⎝ ∂x i ⎠
temperature, which is limited by Ductile-to-Brittle Transition Tem-
perature (DBTT ~600 °C) and re-crystallization temperature where all the symbols have been described in nomenclatures.
(~1300 °C) of the W-alloy [24]. Peak thimble temperature must be Realizable k − ε turbulence model [26,27] has been adopted to
lower than the filler material melting temperature (1511 K) to account for turbulent heat transfer and fluid flow. The second
enhance the life of the divertor and its safe operation. Next limit order upwind scheme is used to combine the convection and
is the necessary power to pump the helium gas through the divertor diffusion transfer. The SIMPLEC algorithm is used to resolve cou-
structure, which is targeted to be less than 10% of the total inci- pling between pressure and velocity in the computations. The
dent power to be removed from the structure. The third limit is convergence criteria for the momentum and continuity equations
thermo-mechanical stresses, which should be lower than the al- are set to a value below 10−4, whereas for energy equation it is set
lowable stress limit of respective materials at the corresponding to below 10−7.
temperature attained during heat transfer.

3. Theoretical formulation and numerical model 3.2. CFD mesh and boundary condition

3.1. Governing equations and numerical method Fig. 2 shows an isometric view of the CFD mesh for the divertor
heat sink model. In order to reduce the computational effort, only
The heat transfer performance of the divertor heat sink struc- half of the section has been modeled. The commercial software
ture has been analyzed numerically using the CFD code ANSYS Fluent GAMBIT has been used to create a structured grid for the

y
z
x

Symmetry (x-y plane)

Fig. 2. CFD mesh for divertor heat sink model.

 S. Rimza et al./Applied Thermal Engineering 100 (2016) 1274–1291 1277

Table 1 3.4. Parameter definitions

Comparison of the maximum thimble temperature for different grid pattern at Re
=1.58 × 104.
The Reynolds number (Re) based on the hydraulic diameter is
Grid Number Predicted maximum Percentage difference defined as:
of cells thimble temperature (K) in temperature

Very coarse 275,000 1,520 Re = mDh ( μ AN ) (5)

Coarse 384,240 1,503 −1.118%
Intermediate 508,638 1,496 −0.465% where m, μ, Dh and AN are helium mass flow rate, viscosity, hydrau-
Fine 650,000 1,493 −0.200% lic diameter and area of nozzle, respectively.
Very fine 742,800 1,493 0.000%
The pressure drop (ΔP) from the inlet to the outlet of the flow
domain, which reflects the hydraulic performance of the divertor
heat sink, is determined by,

computational model. For accurate resolution of heat transfer phe- ΔP = Pin − Pout (6)
nomenon near the fluid–solid interface, the boundary layer mesh
has been adopted as depicted in Fig. 2. Temperature dependent ma- The pumping power, which is required to pump the helium
terial properties have been considered for the solid domains [24]. through the divertor heat sink structure, is calculated as:
Helium (He) is specified as an ideal gas. A constant heat flux of
W = (m ρ ) Δ P (7)
10 MW/m2 is prescribed on the top surface wall, while the remain-
ing walls are assumed adiabatic. No-slip conditions are applied at
To compare the thermal-hydraulic performance associated with
all the walls for flow calculations. Uniform mass flow rate, temper-
geometric variation in modular divertor, pumping power ratio is
ature and pressure (600 °C and 10 MPa) are assigned at the inlet
defined as:
manifold. Viscous dissipation is neglected, since the Eckert number
(Ec) is very small (0.018). Pp = W Q T (8)

3.3. Grid independence analysis
In order to get a grid independent solution, careful grid inde-
pendence check has been carried out with several grid systems. The
number of grid cells considered ranges from 2.75 × 105 to 7.42 × 105,
as shown in Table 1. The maximum thimble temperature has been
selected as the target parameter for grid optimization, as it is an
important design constraint. The exercise revealed that the com-
puted results based on 6.5 × 105 cells are insensitive to further grid
refinement, and the same is employed for all the results pre-
sented herein.
In the above equations, Pin and Pout are pressure at the inlet and
outlet of the flow passage, ρHe is the density of helium at the bulk
temperature [(Tin + Tout)/2]. Additionally, QT is the total incident power,
and W is the power required to pump the helium through the
divertor heat sink.
Heat transfer coefficients is calculate by [17]:
q′′
h= (9)
(Tw Tf )
where, q″, Tw, and Tf are heat flux from the wall, wall surface tem-
perature and local fluid temperature, respectively.

Fig. 3. Comparison of present result of maximum thimble temperature and pressure drop against reported results.
1278 S. Rimza et al./Applied Thermal Engineering 100 (2016) 1274–1291

4. Results and discussion
4.1. Validation of numerical model
To test the validity and enhance the level of confidence in the
numerical solutions, the numerical model has been validated against
the reported results of Widak et al. [28]. For the validation exer-
cise, same geometric structure as reported in the literature has been
adopted. In the reported literature, helium-cooled concept based
on jet impingement has been adopted. The coolant has an inlet tem-
perature and pressure of about 907 K and 10 MPa, respectively. The
thermal hydraulic performance of concept was analyzed by varying
the mass flow rate in the range of 6.8–9 g/s. The comparison between
the present simulation and reported results is depicted in Fig. 3. It
presents the maximum temperature of thimble and pressure loss
as a function of mass flow rate. As expected, the pressure loss

H/DN = 1.43

(a)

Design constraint
1511 (K)

(b)
Fig. 4. Comparison of (a) thermal shield and (b) thimble maximum temperature at various Re number.
 S. Rimza et al./Applied Thermal Engineering 100 (2016) 1274–1291
increases as the square of the flow rate. On the other hand, tem-
perature monotonically decreases with increase in the flow rate. A
good agreement is noticed between the present simulation and the
reported results. The maximum deviation between present simu-
lation and reported results are less than ~4%.
4.2. Thermal-hydraulic performance analysis
Following satisfactory validation, three-dimensional simula-
tions are performed to investigate the heat transfer and fluid flow
characteristics in divertor heat sink. The objective of this study is
to find the optimum cooling approach for divertor heat sink. It is
aimed to obtain a larger thimble diameter (DT) to have lower pres-
sure drops as well as lower manufacturing and operating costs. It
is known that a smaller thimble diameter leads to more thimble
modules and the associated increase in the cost of manufacturing.
Five inlet mass flow rates (m) of 10, 13, 15, 20 and 25 g/s, corre-
sponding to the Re numbers of 1.2 × 104, 1.5 × 104, 1.8 × 104, 2.4 × 104
and 3.0 × 104, respectively are adopted to analyze the thermal hy-
draulic performance of divertor heat sink as shown in Figs. 4 and
5. Numerical studies are carried out at a constant heat flux of
10 MW/m2.
Fig. 4(a) and (b) presents a comparison of maximum tempera-
ture on the surface of thermal shield and thimble under a wide range
of Re number. It can be observed that when the thimble diameter
increases, both the thermal shield and the thimble experience an
increment in temperature at the same Re number. A possible ex-
planation of the above phenomenon is that when thimble diameter
grows, the total heat load to the structure increases. Therefore, higher
mass flow rates are needed to maintain the thimble temperature
limit. Thimble temperatures are well below the filler temperature
constraint (1511 K) at Re numbers of 1.58 × 104, 2.2 × 104 and 2.7 × 104
with the corresponding thimble diameters 16, 20 and 25 mm, re-
spectively as seen in Fig. 4(b).
A comparison of pumping power ratio as function of Re number
at various thimble diameter is shown in Fig. 5. It is clear that with
Design constraint
Fig. 5. Comparison of pumping power ratio as function of Re number at various thimble diameter.
1279
the increase in Re number, the pumping power ratio increases as
the square of Re. However, increasing the thimble diameter reduces
the pumping power ratio. One notable fact is that the pressure drop
decreases significantly in a larger diameter tube. This is due to an
increase in diameter of the inlet manifold section and surface area
of divertor heat sink; hence the velocity of fluid decreases.
It may be noticed that the pumping power ratio is well within
the design limit at Re number 1.58 × 104 for 16 mm diameter of the
tube. About 60% and 140% higher pumping power ratio is re-
quired for 20 and 25 mm diameter tubes to maintain the desired
thimble temperature constraint. The results show that the perfor-
mance of divertor heat sink reduces with increase in thimble
diameter, and better thermal-hydraulic performance can be achieved
from the small diameter tube. Therefore, thimble with 16 mm di-
ameter has been selected for further studies.
To develop further understanding on the effect of thimble
diameter on the heat transfer performance in the divertor heat
sink, a comparison of temperature distribution at prototypical
Re = 1.58 × 104 is depicted in Fig. 6. It can be seen that the tempera-
tures of thermal shield and the thimble are higher for larger tube,
and they decrease significantly with reduction in thimble diame-
ter. This is due to the reduction in conductive resistance as the
diameter of thimble reduces. However, this would need more
thimbles for divertor heat sink with the associated cost implication.
4.3. Parametric studies
As already mentioned in Fig. 4(b), the thimble temperature is
seen to be close to the temperature limit of filler material at a
prototypical Re number. Therefore, an effort is made to reduce the
thimble temperature as much as possible below the brazing
filler-melting limit for enhanced life of divertor and safe opera-
tion. The Re number corresponding to the prototypical condition
based on the mass flow rate of 13 g/s for the DEMO is 1.58 × 104.
Therefore, parametric studies have been performed at this Reyn-
olds number.
1280 S. Rimza et al./Applied Thermal Engineering 100 (2016) 1274–1291

Temperature
[K]

Max. temp. = 2093 K

Max. temp. = 1943 K

Max. thimble
temp. = 1683 K
Max. thimble
temp. = 1563k

[DT= 25mm, H/DN = 1.43] [DT = 20 mm, H/DN = 1.43]

Max. temp. = 1843 K

Max. thimble
temp. = 1493 K

[DT = 16mm, H/DN = 1.43]

Fig. 6. Comparison of temperature distribution for various thimble diameters at Re = 1.58 × 104.

4.3.1. The effect of nozzle diameter (DN) on thermal-hydraulic
performance (circular nozzle)
A comparison of the performance of divertor heat sink as a func-
tion of nozzle diameter (DN) is depicted in Fig. 7(a) and (b) for circular
nozzle. The investigation has been carried out for five different nozzle
diameters, viz., 0.7, 0.65, 0.6, 0.55 and 0.5 mm, while the nozzle-
to-wall distance (H = 1 mm) and the number of nozzle holes are kept
constant. Fig. 7(a) shows that a change in diameter of the nozzle
holes has a strong influence on the maximum thermal shield and
thimble temperatures. Temperature of divertor heat sink is de-
creases with the reduction in nozzle diameter, because for the
identical Re, the velocity of impinging jets increases significantly,
leading to the associated increase in heat transfer coefficient.
Fig. 7(b) shows the pressure drop (ΔP) and pumping power (Pp)
ratio as a function of nozzle diameter. It is seen that ΔP and Pp
extensively increase as the jet diameter decreases. Thus, while
fluid velocity increases largely, it increases the heat transfer coef-
ficient. On the other hand, it causes a strong increase in pressure
loss due to the direct relation between pressure loss and flow
velocity of the working fluid. It can be observed that while thimble
temperature continuously decreases, pressure drop and the pumping
power ratio also increase largely below the 0.6 mm nozzle diam-
eter. The above discussions reveal that 0.6 mm nozzle diameter
reduces the thimble temperature substantially at the acceptable
pumping power limit. Therefore, this diameter has been consid-
ered for further studies.
 S. Rimza et al./Applied Thermal Engineering 100 (2016) 1274–1291 1281

Fig. 7. Effect of circular nozzle diameter on (a) maximum thermal shield and thimble temperature and (b) pumping power ratio and pressure drop.

Fig. 8 illustrates the comparison of velocity and temperature dis-
tributions predicted by CFD analysis for a heat flux value of 10 MW/
m2. It can be clearly seen that the velocity is high at the center of
the nozzle and it continuously increases as nozzle diameter de-
creases. The nozzle with 0.5 mm diameter has the smallest cross
section of jets and consequently the highest nozzle velocity.
Furthermore, it is clear that the temperature of the thimble is also
reduced by an increase in the velocity of fluid. The high velocity of
jet causes higher turbulence in divertor heat sink, leading to an in-
crease in heat transfer coefficient at the cost of higher-pressure drop.
The contours of the local heat transfer coefficient (HTC) for differ-
ent nozzle diameters are shown in Fig. 9. The heat transfer coefficient
1282 S. Rimza et al./Applied Thermal Engineering 100 (2016) 1274–1291
Velocity
[m/s]
Max. Vel. at nozzle
165 m/s
Max. thimble temp. 1493 K
Hein
Heout
DN = 0.7mm Max. Vel. at nozzle
313.5 m/s
DN = 0.5mm
Fig. 8. Comparison of velocity and thimble temperature distributions in divertor heat sink for different nozzle diameters at Re = 1.58 × 104.
at the jet impingement locations is very high, since the local heat
transfer coefficient is strongly influenced by jet velocity. A typical
value of heat transfer coefficient is about 104 W/m2K.
4.3.2. The effect of nozzle to wall space (H) on thermal-hydraulic
performance
Fig. 10(a) presents the variation of thermal shield and thimble
temperatures as a function of H/DN, where H is the nozzle to wall
space. Here, the nozzle diameter (DN = 0.6 mm) and the number of
nozzle holes are kept constant, while the nozzle to wall space is
varied from 0.7 to 1.2. The corresponding H/DN ratios vary from
1.33 to 1.83. It can be observed that the divertor heat sink temper-
ature increases mildly as the nozzle to wall space increases. This
is due to the reduction in momentum of jet velocity at the im-
pingement location. As the space between nozzle to wall increases,
the effective heat transfer coefficient decreases. Furthermore, no
Max. Vel. at nozzle
227 m/s
Max. thimble temp. 1454 K
DN = 0.6mm
Max. thimble temp. 1423 K
significant difference is found in results with a reduction in nozzle
to wall space.
Fig. 10(b) illustrates the effect of H/DN ratio on pressure drop and
pumping power ratio. The pumping power ratio decreases as H in-
creases, due to the reduced velocity magnitude in the system. The
results demonstrate that jet to wall space does not significantly affect
the thermal hydraulic performance of divertor heat sink. Therefore,
nozzle to wall space H = 1 mm with H/DN = 1.66 is considered to be
optimal.
From the thermal-hydraulic parametric studies, it is evident that
divertor heat sink concept has potential to accommodate the design
heat flux (~10 MW/m2) at an acceptable pumping power limit. The
optimized dimension of the thimble (Dt), nozzle diameter (DN) and
H/DN are 16 mm, 0.6 mm and 1.66 mm, respectively. To respect thimble
temperature and pumping power limit, 13 g/s mass flow rate
(Re = 1.58 × 104) is adequate for the present divertor heat sink concept.
 S. Rimza et al./Applied Thermal Engineering 100 (2016) 1274–1291
DN = 0.7 mm
Fig. 9. Comparison of local heat transfer coefficient contour for various circular nozzle diameters.
4.4. The influence of nozzle shapes on thermal-hydraulic
performance
It is necessary to assess the influence of different nozzle shapes
on heat transfer characteristics that have been determined for the
proposed divertor heat sink concept. For all the nozzle geom-
etries, simulations have been performed for h = 1 mm with mass
flow rate in the range of 10–14 g/s. These mass flow rates corre-
spond to Re of 1.2 × 104 − 1.7 × 104 for circular jet. Five different
nozzles, viz., circular, elliptical, rectangular, square and triangular
shapes of approximately equal cross-sectional area, are chosen for
the present simulations. Details of the jet exit geometries are given
in Table 2. Schematic of different nozzle shapes studied for divertor
heat sink is depicted in Fig. 11.
A comparison of thermal shield and thimble temperature for the
various nozzle shapes is shown in Fig. 12(a) and (b). It can ob-
served at any Re that the thermal shield and thimble temperatures
are the minimum for the elliptical nozzle (Case-B) as compared to
all the other shapes. The maximum deviation in temperature among
the various cases is ~30 °C. Fig. 13 is a comparison of the turbu-
lent kinetic energy (TKE) at Re = 1.58 × 104 for elliptical (Case-B) and
circular (Case-A) nozzles. It can be observed that TKE is higher for
the case of elliptical nozzle contributing to increased mixing and
the associated enhancement in HTC.
1283
Heat transfer coeff.
(W/m2 K)
DN = 0.6 mm
DN = 0.5 mm
It can be noticed in Fig. 12 that the square nozzle (Case-F) also
offers a temperature similar to that of circular nozzle (Case-A) for
the same Re number. All the other nozzle shapes and vertical ori-
entation of nozzles (Cases-C and E) are counterproductive toward
the thermal performance of divertor heat sink. The tile and thimble
temperatures achieved for elliptical nozzle are respectively ~12 °C
and ~18 °C less than the reference circular nozzle at same Re.
Fig. 14(a) and (b) illustrate the dependence of pressure drop and
pumping power ratio on Re number for the various nozzle shapes.
It is clear that both pressure drop and pumping power ratio are the
highest for triangular nozzles. Similarly, the elliptical nozzle also
demands marginally higher pumping power compared to the cir-
cular nozzle (Case-A).
4.5. Design analysis of divertor heat sink concept at various heat flux
values
Thermal-hydraulic performance of divertor heat sink concept has
been investigated at higher thermal loads to estimate the toler-
ance of the design. Toward this, numerical studies have been
performed at various heat flux values, viz., 8, 10, 11, and 12 MW/
m2 over a wide range of Re number 1.2 × 104–3.0 × 104 for the
optimized case (Case-B). The temperature distribution on the surface
of thermal shield and thimble at various heat loads are depicted
1284 S. Rimza et al./Applied Thermal Engineering 100 (2016) 1274–1291

Fig. 10. (a) Comparison of maximum thermal shield and thimble temperatures and (b) pumping power ratio at various H/DN ratios for circular nozzle.

in Fig. 15(a) and (b), respectively. The peak temperature increases
linearly with increase in heat flux at a fixed Re number. This is ex-
pected because for identical heat transfer coefficient and fluid
temperature, the peak structural temperature is directly propor-
tional to heat flux. Further, for a fixed heat flux the peak temperature
decreases gradually with Re number, as the heat transfer
coefficient increases with the Re numbers. The predicted heat trans-
fer coefficient for the multi-jet elliptical nozzle is compared with
the circular nozzle correlation proposed by Martin [29] in Fig. 16,
for H/DN = 1.66. It is clear that the heat transfer coefficient of ellip-
tical nozzle is ~14% higher than that of the circular nozzle. This
comparison indirectly validates the present CFD simulations.
 S. Rimza et al./Applied Thermal Engineering 100 (2016) 1274–1291 1285

Table 2 It can be seen that the maximum temperature of divertor heat

Detailed dimension of the nozzle exit geometries. sink is well within the design limits for heat loads of ≤10 MW/m2
Name Geometry Hydraulic Diameter (mm) at Re = 1.58 × 104. On the other hand, when the heat flux is 11 MW/
m2 the peak temperature on thimble would still be under the
Case-A 0.6
required temperature limit indicating a margin of 10% in the design.
Case-B ~0.6 (major axis = 0.80 mm, minor axis = 0.48 mm) For heat flux values exceeding 11 MW/m2, the Re number has to be
increased with the associated penalty in pumping power.
Case-C 0.6 (major axis = 0.48 mm, minor axis = 0.80 mm)

5. Solid mechanical analysis

Case-D ~0.6 (height = 0.48 mm, width = 0.70 mm)
Structural analysis is performed to determine the state of stresses
Case-E ~0.6 (height = 0.70 mm, width = 0.48 mm) in divertor heat sink assembly as a result of high pressure (10 MPa)
and large temperature gradient. The predicted results of pressure and
Case-F 0.6 (side = 0.60 mm) temperature distributions by the computational fluid dynamics anal-
Case-G 0.6 (triangle height = 0.9 mm) ysis are used to carry out the thermo-mechanical analysis through
the finite element based program ANSYS Workbench 14.0 [24].

s = 4 mm
p = 4.9 mm

Steel Cartridge
Case - A

Case – B Case – C Case – D

Case – E Case – F Case – G

Fig. 11. Schematic of different nozzle shapes studied for divertor heat sink.
1286 S. Rimza et al./Applied Thermal Engineering 100 (2016) 1274–1291

Fig. 12. Influence of nozzle shape on the maximum temperatures (a) thermal shield and (b) thimble.
 S. Rimza et al./Applied Thermal Engineering 100 (2016) 1274–1291 1287

TKE
[m2/s2]

Case-A Case-B

Fig. 13. Comparison of turbulence kinetic energy distributions for reference Case-A and optimized Case-B at Re = 1.58 × 104.

5.1. Calculation model, mesh and boundary condition
In the solid mechanical study a computational model identical
to that used as in thermal hydraulic analysis has been adopted. The
x–y plane is defined as the symmetry plane. The finite element mesh
for the computational model is generated by the internal ANSYS
Workbench mesh-tool. It consists of a uniform hexahedral mesh with
~2.5 × 104 elements. Temperature dependent material properties have
been considered for tungsten and tungsten lanthanum oxide. The
property values are taken from ITER Material Handbook [24]. The
nodal temperature and pressure data are imported from CFD results
(Case-A) for the solid mechanical analysis, and suspension is defined
at the lower end of the thimble as frictionless.
triangular nozzles are found to give the worst performance. Simi-
larly, a minimum thimble temperature and pressure drop in the
circuit is achieved at H/DN ~1.66. The proposed design is found to
have a power-handling margin of 10% over target heat flux value
of 10 MW/m2. The stresses induced in the divertor module due to
thermal gradients and pressure loads are important factors that
limit the life of the divertor. Therefore, structural analysis of the
divertor module has also been carried out, and the stress values
arising out of temperature gradient and pressures are found to be
within acceptable limits, demonstrating the reliability of the pro-
posed concept.
Nomenclatures

5.2. Solid mechanical analysis results AN Area of the nozzle [m2]

DN Diameter of nozzle [m]
Fig. 17(a) represents the imported temperature distribution at DT Thimble diameter [m]
the thimble surface from the CFD calculation. It can be seen that H Nozzle to wall space [m]
the peak temperature at the thimble are very close to the CFD Keff Effective molecular thermal conductivity of fluid
results, and the maximum deviation in imported temperature [Keff = Kl + Kt] (W/m − K)
is found to be less than ~1 °C. Fig. 17(b) depicts the predicted von Kl Laminar thermal conductivity of fluid [W/m − K]
Misses stress distribution in the divertor heat sink design. It is Kt Turbulent thermal conductivity of fluid (W/m − K)
seen that the maximum resulting stress in the thimble is ~365 MPa Ks Thermal heat conductivity of solids (W/m − K)
occurring in the sharp corner on its inner side at a temperature of k Turbulent kinetic energy [m2/s2]
~726 °C, which is well below the allowable limit of~462 MPa [24]. m Mass flow rate [kg/s]
The computed stress of ~145 MPa at the thermal shield–thimble μeff Effective viscosity of the fluid [μeff = μl + μt] [N·s/m2]
interface at a maximum temperature of ~1182 °C is still within μl Laminar viscosity of the fluid [N·s/m2]
the allowable value 310 MPa. For the tungsten tile the maximum μt Turbulent viscosity of the fluid [N·s/m2]
stress is ~145 MPa. It occurs at the top surface at an existing P Pressure [Pa]
temperature of ~1543 °C. This is also well below the allowable p Axial pitch [m]
limit of 246 MPa. s Circumferential pitch [m]
QT Total incident power [W]
6. Conclusions q” Heat flux from the wall [W/ m2]
Tw Temperature of wall surface [K]
A divertor module concept with multi-jet helium cooling system Tf Local fluid temperature [K]
has been proposed for use in a divertor system of fusion reactor. uj Velocity components in three spatial directions [m/s]
Three-dimensional thermal hydraulic investigations have been W Pumping power [W]
carried out to understand the performance of the cooling system
as a function of various critical parameters, which includes Greek symbol
thimble diameter, nozzle diameter, nozzle-to-wall space, nozzle ε Rate of dissipation [m2/s3]
shape, etc. Among various nozzle shapes studied, for identical Re, μ Dynamic viscosity [N·s/m2]
elliptical nozzles are found to give the best performance whereas ρ Helium density [kg/m3]
1288 S. Rimza et al./Applied Thermal Engineering 100 (2016) 1274–1291

Fig. 14. Influence of nozzle shape on (a) pressure drop and (b) pumping power ratio.
 S. Rimza et al./Applied Thermal Engineering 100 (2016) 1274–1291 1289

Fig. 15. Comparison between (a) maximum thermal shield and (b) thimble temperature at different heat loads for optimized case (Case-B).
1290 S. Rimza et al./Applied Thermal Engineering 100 (2016) 1274–1291

Fig. 16. Comparison between wall heat transfer coefficient at various Re numbers.

(a) (b)
Fig. 17. Divertor heat sink: (a) temperature distribution; (b) von Mises distribution.

References [6] S. Rimza, S. Khirwadkar, K. Velusamy, An experimental and numerical study

[1] D. Maisonnier, I. Cook, S. Pierre, B. Lorenzo, D.P. Luigi, G. Luciano, et al., DEMO
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heat sink with different geometric configurations of sectorial extended surfaces,
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[8] T. Ihli, R. Kruessmann, I. Ovchinnikov, P. Norajitra, V. Kuznetsov, R. Giniyatulin,
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[12] J.I. Linares, L.E. Herranz, I. Fernández, A. Cantizano, B.Y. Moratilla, Supercritical
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 Applied Thermal Engineering 82 (2015) 390e402

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Applied Thermal Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apthermeng

Research paper

An experimental and numerical study of flow and heat transfer

in helium cooled divertor finger mock-up with sectorial
extended surface
Sandeep Rimza a, *, Samir Khirwadkar a, Karuppanna Velusamy b
a
Divertor and First Wall Technology Development Division, Institute for Plasma Research (IPR), Bhat, 382428 Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India
b
Mechanics and Hydraulics Division, Reactor Design Group (RDG), Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR), Kalpakkam 603102, India

h i g h l i g h t s

Sectorial extended surface is proposed to cool modular diverter finger mock up.

We study its thermal-hydraulic characteristics by experimental and computational simulations.

A novel heat concentrator has been developed to achieve high heat flux.

Experimental correlations for pressure loss and Nusselt number are proposed.

Effectiveness of extended surface has been demonstrated.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: A jet impingement technique with a sectorial extended surface (SES) concept for the modular helium-
Received 14 November 2014 cooled divertor has been studied within the framework of the post ITER tokamak, at the Institute for
Accepted 24 February 2015 plasma research (IPR), INDIA. Experimental and numerical studies have been conducted to predict the
Available online 5 March 2015
thermal hydraulic performance of a finger type divertor design with proposed SES. Critical thermal
hydraulic parameters, effective heat transfer coefficient and pressure loss have been measured in the
Keywords:
experiment for the reference divertor as well as for a divertor with SES. The experimental mock-ups are
SES
made to full scale respecting Reynolds and Prandtl number similarities. Air is used as the simulant to
Fusion reactor
Divertor
represent helium, which is used as the coolant in prototype. A novel heat concentrator has been
Tile developed to simulate the high heat flux, by electrical heating. The benchmark experimental data have
Thimble been used to validate the three dimensional conjugate heat transfer models. The computational result for
Heat transfer enhancement heat transfer coefficients and pressure loss are in satisfactory agreement with the experimental results.
Based on detailed parametric studies, correlations have been proposed for Nusselt number and pressure
loss coefficient as a function of Reynolds number which can be used for design applications. The pro-
posed SES divertor is seen to significantly augment the thermal performance of the finger type divertor at
the penalty of a minimum pressure drop at the prototypical condition. The results of the present study
provide added confidence in the numerical model used to design the divertor and its applicability to
other high heat flux gas cooled components.
© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction of fusion reactor technology, India is seriously pursuing research

and development activities at the Institute of plasma Research. The
It is generally accepted that fusion power is one of the promising study was launched with the aim of developing an attractive power
sources of sustainable energy in the future. Towards development plant concept for the future fusion reactor called DEMO [1]. Design
of DEMO poses interesting and challenging thermal hydraulics is-
sues, arising out of very high heat flux. Divertor is one of the vital
components of fusion reactor and employed to ‘Divert’ the hot
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: sandeepr@ipr.res.in (S. Rimza), sameer@ipr.res.in plasma. It faces a direct thermal attack of plasma and is subjected to
(S. Khirwadkar), kvelu@igcar.gov.in (K. Velusamy). heat flux of the order of 10 MW/m2. The complete divertor target

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2015.02.066
1359-4311/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 S. Rimza et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 82 (2015) 390e402
plate is divided into a number of small volumes known as cassettes.
The plasma-facing surface of each cassette is made up of numerous
small cooling “finger mock up” to reduce the thermal stress as
depicted in Fig. 1.
Many experimental and numerical studies have been reported
in the open literature to investigate the heat transfer enhancement
and fluid flow characteristics of extended surface. The focus of
these studies has been to achieve a high surface area to volume
ratio, a large convective heat transfer coefficient, and a minimum
volume of coolant inventory. Heat transfer characteristics of jet
impingement have been numerically investigated with sectorial
extended surfaces by Rimza et al. [2], in the divertor finger mock up.
Their result shows that, the addition of SES enhances heat removal
potential with minimum pumping power. Gayton et al. [3] inves-
tigated the heat transfer and friction characteristics in a plate type
divertor, and predicted that the thermal performance of the
divertor significantly increases with the use of metallic foam.
Thermal performance and flow instabilities in multi-channel heli-
um-cooled porous metal divertor modules were analyzed by You-
chison et al. [4] and it was shown that the design can survive a
maximum heat flux of ~29.5 MW/m2. Various heat transfer
enhancement techniques (swirl tape, roughening, porous media,
etc.) and the design issues associated with pumping power of the
cooled divertor have been studied by Baxi and Wong [5] and Baxi
[6]. Ihli and Ili
c [7] studied various cooling concepts for future
fusion power plants and found that the V-rib based surface
roughness is very efficient in heat removal.
Yuan et al. [8] investigated the potential of a plate pin fin heat
sink for electronics cooling. The predicted result shows that pin
height and air velocity have significant influences on the thermal
hydraulic performances. Numerical simulation of flow and heat
transfer of fin structure in air-cooled heat exchanger has been
investigated by Li et al. [9]. It was found that the air-side heat flux
and heat transfer coefficient increase sharply for the wavy fin
arrangement. Shafeie et al. [10] numerically investigated the effect
of micro channel and pin fin on the thermal performance of heat
Fig. 1. Schematic of (a) He cooled divertor finger mock-up and (b) 3-D and close up views of SES (all dimensions in mm).
391
sinks. It was observed that, heat removal capability of the finned
heat sinks is lower than that of the micro-channel for an identical
pumping power. A fan-shaped pin fin in a rectangular channel was
analyzed by Moon et al. [11] and their studies revealed that, fan-
shaped pin fin showed an improved Nusselt number (Nu)
compared to a circular pin fin, at Reynolds number (Re) less than
100,000. On the other hand, the pressure drop in the channel with
the fan-shaped pin fin was marginally less small than that with the
circular pin fin. The heat transfer enhancement characteristics of
wavy fin-and-flat tube heat exchangers have been analyzed by
Dong et al. [12]. They found that wavy fin with large waviness
amplitude can provide a high heat transfer coefficient. A numerical
study on the heat transfer enhancement with interrupted annular
groove fin was performed by Lin et al. [13]. Their results reveal that,
interrupted annular groove has a dual effect on fluid flow, guiding
and detached eddy inhibition to reduce the size of the wake region.
Experimental studies on staggered and in-line pin fin arrays
installed in an internal cooling channel were performed by Van
Fossen [14] and Sparrow et al. [15]. It was found that the heat
transfer coefficient and pressure drop for the in-line array are lower
than those for the staggered array. A novel heat transfer enhance-
ment technique was evaluated by Collins et al. [16]. In their studies,
they showed that the use of wire-coil significantly increases the
heat transfer at reasonably low flow rates, and hence pumping
power. The flow and heat transfer performance in a channel with
dimples has been studied by Moon et al. [17], Mahmood and Ligrani
[18], and Mahmood et al. [19]. In their studies revealed that by
providing dimple on the surface can enhance the Nusselt number
compared to a smooth surface by a factor of 1.8e2.8.
From the above literature survey, it is clear that heat transfer
enhancement is an active area of current research. In the context of
DEMO, it is desirable to explore efficient cooling technology for
helium cooled divertor, which can withstand a high heat load
(~10 MW/m2) for divertor. Towards this a new sectorial extended
surface was proposed and studied for the divertor in an earlier
investigation [2]. However, no experimental data have been
392 S. Rimza et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 82 (2015) 390e402
reported till date to validate the findings. The main objective of the
present work is to conduct, an experimental and numerical inves-
tigation to validate the thermal hydraulic performance of a design
that has close geometric and dynamic similarities of a finger mock-
up reported in Ref. [2]. The thermal performance has been evalu-
ated by comparing the heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop
across the test section.
2. Description of the physical model
The proposed helium cooled divertor finger mock up has been
depicted in Fig. 1. An earlier computational study by the authors [2]
indicated that this design is capable of handling heat flux 10 MW/
m2, while maintaining the design temperature limit for the tung-
sten [20]. In the divertor design plasma facing component uses
tungsten as the “Tile” (width 17.8 mm) which is brazed to a
“Thimble” (Ø15  1 mm) made up of tungsten alloy (WL-10). A
concentric steel jet cartridge (Ø11.2  1 mm) carrying the nozzle
(2 mm) is positioned within the thimble. Coolant enters through
the nozzle and flows radially outwards through the space between
the cartridge and the thimble.
Helium is used as the coolant due to its attractive chemical and
neutronic properties and safe operation. However, low thermo
physical characteristics of helium require high pressure and large
pumping power. To enhance the rate of heat transfer, the sectorial
extended surface (made of WL-10) has been added to the finger
mock up with supporting plate. The SES is angularly constructed at
every 30 sector, resulting in thirty six extended surfaces as
depicted in Fig. 1. Each radial row consists of twelve SES evenly
spaced at 30 spacing. Alternating rows of SES have been offset by
30 to promote circumferential flow in between the extended
surfaces. By a proper design of the extended surface, all the surfaces
are made to participate in the heat transfer process.
3. Experimental studies
3.1. Experimental condition
It is known that geometric and dynamic similarities are very
essential to carry out model experiments, and enable one to scale
up the results from model to prototype. In the present investigation
test geometries were manufactured to closely resemble the pro-
totype for testing in an air loop. The test condition studied has
Reynolds (Re) and Prandtl (Pr) numbers similar to the prototypical
operating condition of the divertor as presented in Table 1. Jet
diameter is selected as the characteristic length scale, due to the
impingement heat transfer. The Reynolds number based on the jet
diameter (2 mm) is defined as:

  given incident heat flux. Photographs of jet cartridge with different
Re ¼ mD mAjet
From Table 1, it is observed that the effect of Pr number on
thermal performance of divertor is less affected due to negligible
difference in Pr numbers for air and helium. The Re number of
the jet is 1.1  105 and for the present investigation, it is varied over
a wide range 6.9  104e2.6  105 with an incident flux of
~0.75 MW/m2.
Table 1
Comparison of thermal hydraulic parameters for the actual He-cooled divertor and experiment studies using air loop.
Coolant Inlet temperature 
(C) Inlet pressure (bar) Dynamic viscosity (kg/m-s)
5
He 600 100 4.16  10
Air ~27 6.86 1.80  105
3.2. Experimental test module
Thermal conductivity of brass is similar to tungsten alloy at high
temperature. Hence, experiment has been performed in a brass
alloy test module with uniform incident heat flux, as depicted in
Fig. 2. The test module consists of jet cartridge, outer brass shell
assembly and heat concentrator. The experimental investigation
has been carried out in test module with two design configurations,
with and without arrays of sectorial extended surface.
3.2.1. Heat concentrator
A copper heater block is used to achieve a uniform incident
heat flux, and the block is tapered at the neck region to focus and
increase the incident flux at the test module. A high density
950 W cartridge heater (OD 15 mm  80 mm long) is tightly
fitted to the copper heater block to heat the test module as
shown in Fig. 2. A high thermal conductivity paste has been used
between the mating surfaces to minimize the thermal resistance.
A variable transformer has been connected to an ammeter and
voltmeter to control the power output through the cartridge
heater for a uniform heat flux on top of the test module. The neck
region (OD 13 mm) of the concentrator is slip fitted in the test
module.
3.2.2. Jet cartridge and outer shell assembly
The inner cartridge (ID 9.2 mm  53 mm long) has been con-
structed in brass that simulates the steel cartridge in the prototype
as shown in Fig. 1. The gap between the brass cartridge and outer
assembly is maintained at 2 mm for the case without SES config-
uration. The configuration with SES has been manufactured as
depicted in Fig. 3.
An outer brass shell surrounding the inner cartridge that closely
duplicates the W-alloy structure, in the first set of configuration
tile, thimble and supporting plate unit has been manufactured as a
single entity (Fig. 3). The test module is instrumented by way of
four 0.6 mm diameter, K-type thermocouples (TCs). All the ther-
mocouples used in the present experimental work, have been
subjected to three points (50  C, 100  C and 170  C) calibration
within ±1  C accuracy. The thermocouples are insulated with
Kapton to have a negligible heat loss. The TCs are positioned within
brass alloy, 0.5 mm from the cooled surface and offset by 90 to the
each other at a radial distance of 2.5, 4.5, 6.5 and 8.5 mm respec-
tively as depicted in Fig. 3. To ensure correct positions of the
thermocouples in the test module, thermocouple wires were
graduated with a length which was used as a reference for insertion
length. A high thermal conductivity paste has been used to fix the
thermocouples in the test section and to minimize the thermal
contact resistance. The output from these TCs are used to compute
the average heat transfer coefficient over the cooled surface for a
(1)
configurations are shown in Fig. 4.
3.3. Experimental flow loop and procedure
The experimental test module was investigated in an open air
flow loop as shown in Fig. 5. Cartridge heater (Kerone, 120 V and
950 Watts) was placed in the copper heater block to heat the test
Heat flux (MW/m2) Gas flow rate (g/s) Rep Prp
5
10 7.3 1.1  10 0.70
~0.75 3.1 1.1  105 0.68
 S. Rimza et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 82 (2015) 390e402 393

Fig. 2. Experimental test module assembly without SES (all dimensions in mm).

Fig. 3. Close up views of experimental test module with thermocouples locations (a) without SES and (b) with SES.
394 S. Rimza et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 82 (2015) 390e402

Fig. 4. Photographs of (a) Test section (b) close up view of heat concentrator, (c) jet cartridge and (d) with and without SES configuration.

module and a variable transformer was connected to control the regulators (Marsh, 0.1%) are used to control the outlet pressure of
power output through the cartridge heater for the uniform heat the compressor. The compressed air was passed through a Rota-
flux on top of the test module. Air from a compressed air line at meter (Omega, ±2% of FS) before the test module and was finally
gauge pressures of 6.86 bars was used as the coolant. Pressure discharged to an atmosphere.

Fig. 5. Schematic of the experimental facility.

 S. Rimza et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 82 (2015) 390e402
Fig. 6. Schematic symmetry sector of 180 computational model of the air loop mock-
up.
The mass flow rate (m) through the test section, measured by
the flow meter, was controlled by a 1/400 high pressure needle valve
(Parker Autoclave, SW4071). Pressure transmitter (Marsh, ±1%) and
Thermocouples (Omega, ±1  C) were used to measure the test
section inlet/outlet pressures and temperature. The whole test
section assembly was insulated with a thick glass wool layer. The
flow is considered to have “steady state”, when the temperatures
measured by the TCs did not change more than 1  C over 10 min
interval. Each experiment took approximately 30 minutes to reach
steady state. The air inlet temperature was ~27  C. The mass flow
rate of air was varied from 2 g/s to 7.5 g/s for Reynolds number
6.9  104 to 2.6  105. Energy balance validation shows a deviation
of less than ~3.5% for the experiments over the whole Reynolds
number range.
4. Numerical approach
4.1. Computational model, meshing and boundary condition
Three dimensional and steady sate conjugate numerical simu-
lations were performed, to predict flow and heat transfer charac-
teristics in the finger mock up with and without sectorial extended
surface. In order to validate the numerical results the heat transport
in the solid wall and in the fluid and the boundary conditions were
Fig. 7. Computational grid near the extended surface (a) expanded view of medium grid and (b) surface mesh.
395
made identical to the experiments. A schematic of the test module
used for the numerical simulation with boundary conditions is
depicted in Fig. 6.
Due to the presence of symmetry, one half of the test section
(180  sector) is modeled in the present simulation. Temperature
dependent material properties were adopted for all solid domains,
namely jet cartridge, outer shell assembly, SES, cartridge heater and
heat concentrator. For all the simulations, the ideal gas assumption
was used for the working fluid air. In the numerical model, exper-
imental value of inlet temperature, mass flow rate (m) and power
inputs to the heater as volumetric heat generation were specified as
a boundary condition. At the exit, the pressure outlet boundary
condition was specified. A natural convection boundary condition
was imposed over all the other exterior surface of the model which
was insulated with glass wool insulation and it was estimated
through standard natural convection correlations [21]. Thermo-
couples are mounted on the outer surface of insulation to measure
the surface temperature and to account for the convection heat loss
from test module.
4.2. Governing equations
The keε turbulence model was used, due to high Reynolds
number and complicated geometrical model. This model accurately
predicts the complex turbulent flows with rotation, boundary
layers under strong adverse pressure gradients, separation, and
recirculation [22,23]. This model has been successfully used to
simulate the flow and heat transfer in channel with pin fins [24,25].
The steady state forms of continuity, momentum and energy
equations for gas flow were solved in the present numerical
simulation. A second order discretization scheme is used to reduce
the numerical errors, and the SIMPLE algorithm was used to resolve
the pressureevelocity coupling in the computation [26]. The re-
sidual for declaring convergence was 104 for continuity and mo-
mentum equations. The same was 107 for the energy equation. The
whole numerical simulation was carried out using commercial
computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software ANSYS Fluent [22].
5. Empirical correlation for thermal performance
5.1. Extraction of heat flux and surface temperatures
The heat flux is the ratio of net heating power (Qnet), to the area
of the cooled surface, Ac ¼ 13  103 m2. The net heating power is
the balance of total electric power supplied to the heater and the
396 S. Rimza et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 82 (2015) 390e402

Fig. 8. Results of grid sensitivity analysis.

minor heat loss (estimated as 2e3.5% of total heating power)

through the test module by natural convection. Fig. 3 is the sche-
matic view of the cooled surface showing the locations and the
areas used to determine the area weighted mean temperature us-
ing various TC readings. The average temperature of the cooled
surface in the experiments was estimated from the TCs entrenched
just below the cooled surface. The TC readings were first extrapo-
lated to the cooled surface assuming conduction through 0.5 mm
thickness of the brass shell using the calculated heat flux. These
extrapolated temperatures were used to find the area weighted
main plate temperature ðT c Þ from,
Z
T c ¼ 2p TðrÞrdr=Ac ¼ 0:01TC  1* þ 0:10TC  2* þ 0:33TC
c (2)
* *
 3 þ 0:55TC  4

where, ‘*’ represents extrapolated readings of TCs at the cooled

surface.

5.2. Extraction of heat transfer coefficient

Fig. 9. Comparisons of measured and predicted thermocouple temperatures (a) TCs
1e2 and (b) TCs 3e4 at various Reynolds number.
The effective heat transfer coefficient (heff) for the case without
SES is determined based on the average heat flux incident on the
surface and the jet cartridge and the fact that air is a relatively poor
cooled surface (Ac) and the temperature difference between the
thermal conductor. Accordingly, the fin efficiency (h) is given by [21].
cooled surface wall and the bulk fluid as defined by,
h ¼ tanh nl=nl; (5)
Q net
heff ¼   (3) qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
Tc  Tb Ac where, n ¼ hact P
and ‘l’ is the length of SES.
Ke Ace

Computation of the effective wall heat transfer coefficient for Effectiveness (z) of the extended surface is defined as the ratio of
the test section with SES requires accounting the fin efficiency (h), heat transfer rate by SES to that without extended surface and is
because the surface temperature of the SES is spatially nonuniform. written as:
Therefore,
  z ¼ Ae  h=Ac (6)
heff Ac ¼ hact Ap þ Ae h (4)
The pumping power (Wair) is determined from,
where, ‘hact’ actual heat transfer coefficient and for the bare test
section, hact ¼ heff. To determine efficiency, an adiabatic boundary
Wair ¼ m  Dpair =rair (7)
condition has been assumed at the tip of the extended surface. This is
justified due to the presence of a small air between the extended
 S. Rimza et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 82 (2015) 390e402 397

Fig. 10. Comparison of predicted temperature ( C) distribution over the cooled surface at Re ¼ 1.3  105.

where the symbols have their usual meanings and are described in
the nomenclature.
5.3. Error analysis
The uncertainty in the experimental data has been determined
by the standard error analysis method described by Bevington and
Robinson [27]. The measurement error in net heating power (Qnet)
and temperature are ±2.5% and ±0.4  C respectively, and the air
property is ±1.1%. Based on this data, the measurement error in
derived quantities heff, Dp, h, Wair and z are respectively ±4.95%,
±5.6%, ±1.2%, ±6.1% and ±1.29%. The values are very small
compared to the mean values of the corresponding quantities in
the respective graphs. Hence, the error bar is not visible in the
graphs.
temperature and pressure drop of test section do not change
significantly between the medium grid and fine grid. The
maximum relative deviation of the two variables is within 4.5%.
However, it is found that the computational time required for each
iteration in the case of fine mesh is large compared to that of the
medium grid. Therefore, the medium grid has been chosen for
further investigations. The yþ value is also an important criterion
in the numerical simulation for the accuracy of predictions for wall
shear stress and heat transfer near the solid/fluid interface region.
To capture the heat transfer performance close to the wall,
meshing with denser grids was adopted by using a boundary layer
mesh as depicted in Fig. 7. In the present study, yþ values were
maintained around ~1 [22]. The measured value of wall

6. Results and discussion

6.1. Grid sensitivity analysis

Identification of an optimum mesh size beyond which, the

computed simulation is independent of the mesh size is the first
step in computational simulation. The number of radial grid di-
visions on the periphery of the extended surface and in the nozzle
is a useful constraint to determine the mesh for an accurate pre-
diction of the cooled surface wall temperature. Towards this, an
effort is made to investigate the sensitivity of the results to various
computational grids, where the computational domain is exam-
ined for three grid systems, that is coarse (13  105), medium
(15  105) and fine (18  105) grids. Fig. 7 shows a detailed view
for the medium grid around the extended surface and SES grid
domain.
The grid sensitivity analysis was performed for Reynolds
number of 6.9  104. The predicted results of mean surface tem-
perature and pressure drop in the finger mock up are presented in
Fig. 8 for various grid counts. It is clear that the surface Fig. 11. Comparisons of the measured and predicted pressure drop against Re.
398 S. Rimza et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 82 (2015) 390e402

Fig. 12. Comparison of velocity (m/s) distribution on xey plane at a distance of 0.5 mm from the cooled surface at Re ¼ 1.3  105. (a) without SES (b) with SES and (c) vector plot
with SES.

temperature for Re ¼ 6.9  104 is 154  C. The corresponding value
predicted in the medium grid is 151  C and it compares satisfac-
torily with the experimental data.
6.2. Comparative studies of the thermocouple temperatures
The thermocouple temperatures in the test section with and
without SES have been measured in the Reynolds number range of
6.9  104e2.6  105. The comparison between computed ther-
mocouple temperatures against the experimental data for different
Reynolds number is depicted in Fig. 9. From Fig. 9, it is seen that the
local surface temperatures of the test module decrease with an
increase in Reynolds number as expected, but the reduction is more
in case with SES. The wall temperature exhibits a radial non-
uniformity to the extent of 4e6  C. This is expected since coolant
temperature increases along the flow direction. The temperature
values at thermocouples location obtained from the simulation are
in satisfactory agreement with the experimental results with
maximum deviation less than 5  C. Predicted wall temperatures are
consistently less than the measured data.
6.2.1. Discussion on temperature drop by SES
The temperature distributions in the target plate with/without
SES, as predicted by the mathematical model are depicted in Fig. 10
for Re ¼ 1.3  105. It is seen that for identical heat flux, addition of
SES in the design reduces the plate temperature appreciably. It is
due to the improvement in the effective heat transfer coefficient by
SES, as a result of increase in surface area and turbulence. Further,
 S. Rimza et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 82 (2015) 390e402
the surface temperature of the test section at the center (TC-1)
drops down rapidly while it increases in the radial direction. The
rapid decrease in temperature at the center is due to the direct
impingement of a high velocity jet, which leads to high heat
dissipation, that is clearly evident in Fig. 10. Similar trends are
observed in the experiments also. These results suggest that the
heat transfer efficiency is improved with the provision of SES.
6.3. Comparative studies on pressure drop by SES
Pressure drops in the test section were measured for a heat load
~0.75 MW/m2 at various Reynolds numbers. Fig. 11 compares the
measured pressure drop against numerically predicted pressure
drop, with and without SES in the test section. The predicted and
measured results exhibit identical trends. The pressure drop in the
test module with the presence of SES arrays is higher than that
without the SES module, as the fluid has to cross a series of barriers
provided by the SES. It can be observed that the numerical results of
the both the test modules are in satisfactory agreement with the
experimental results at the low Reynolds number (~1.5  105).
Maximum deviation observed between the measured and predicted
results for both configurations is ~18% for the high Reynolds number.
6.3.1. Correlation for loss coefficient
An engineering parameter of practical interest is the pressure
loss coefficient. It is essential to know its dependence on the Rey-
nolds Number. The functional relationship for loss coefficient can
be written as:
KL ¼ fn ðReÞ
The loss coefficient (KL), based on the coolant property and
measured pressure drop (DP) across the test module is determined
from,
DP
KL ¼ . (8)
rair V2air 2
where, Vair stands for the mean velocity of the jet. The data cor-
responding to all experimental tests for both the configurations
have been used for determination of KL. Based on this, the following
relationships have been developed:
KL ¼ 2:6271 Re0:1708 ðWithout SESÞ
and
KL ¼ 3:8251 Re0:1379 ðWith SESÞ (10)
2
The R values for these equations are 0.996 and 0.992,
respectively.
6.3.2. Discussion on pressure drop by SES
In order to develop further understanding into the effect of SES
on the pressure drop mechanism, a comparison of the contour and
vector plots of the streamwise velocity distribution on xey plane of
both the configurations is depicted in Fig. 12. It can be seen, from
Fig. 12(b) and (c), that a high velocity jet flow and symmetric
vortices are generated in the vicinity of the extended surface as
compared to the case without SES. Due to the formation of vortex
and high velocity, turbulence level increases, leading to the asso-
ciated increase in heat transfer coefficient. However, the eddies and
flow acceleration caused by blockage, increase the pressure loss in
SES.
399
6.4. Comparative analysis of heat transfer by SES
For the experimental test section shown in Fig. 2, thermal per-
formance has been analyzed to find the efficacy of SES. A compar-
ison of experimental data that predicted by three-dimensional
conjugate analysis is presented in Fig. 13. Effective heat transfer
coefficient of the test section with SES is significantly larger than
the case without SES for the entire Re range. As expected, the
effective heat transfer coefficient is large with SES, as it offers a
relatively large surface area. Also, due to a proper layout of the SES,
all the walls of the extended surface are forced to participate in the
heat exchange process.
It can be seen from Fig. 13, that the predicted values of heff are in
good agreement with the experimental values for the entire range
of Reynolds number. The maximum deviation between the
measured and predicted results at the prototypical condition for
both configurations is less than 6.5%. The numerical simulation is
reasonably accurate in predicting the heat transfer enhancement
potential of the test section with SES. This serves as a validation for
the computational model which is the most important consider-
ation in the mock up design for the divertor [2].
6.4.1. Correlation for Nusselt number
The intensity of heat exchange between the cooled surface wall
and flowing fluid is characterized by the Nusselt number (Nu). The
Nusselt number over the cooled surface is determined from heff, jet
diameter and thermal conductivity of air evaluated at the bulk fluid
temperature. From the above description and data presented in
Fig. 13, it is found that the Nusselt number has also strong rela-
tionship with Re. The average Nu can be correlated as,
Nu ¼ C Ren
The values of coefficient ‘C’ and exponent ‘n’ have been deter-
mined from the experimental data and curve fitted as a function of
Re, from which the following correlation for the Nusselt number are
proposed.
Nu ¼ 0:1488 Re0:711 ðWithout SESÞ (11)
and
Nu ¼ 2:2762 Re0:578 ðWith SESÞ (12)
(9)
Fig. 13. Comparison of the measured and predicted effective heat transfer coefficients.
400 S. Rimza et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 82 (2015) 390e402

The values of R2 for above equations are 0.995 and 0.983, extended surface. The effectiveness of extended surface should be
respectively. These are valid for Re number range of 6.9  104 to large to keep the extra cost of adding the extended surface as low as
2.6  105, and Pr ~ 0.7. possible. On the other hand, by determining the efficiency of an
extended surface, one can assess the heat transferring capacity of
the extended surface.
6.4.2. Discussion on heat transfer by SES
Fig. 14(a) and (b) shows the variations of h and z illustrating the
From Fig. 10, it is seen that in the present design, the SES
performance of SES as a function of Re. As expected, when the Re
offers a relatively large surface area to the volume ratio. Further
increases in the SES, both h and z decrease due to the increase in
with an appropriate arrangement of the SES, satisfactory coolant
heat transfer coefficient. At the prototypical operating condition,
velocity can be achieved on the entire surface. Also, since the
the values of h and z for air are ~89% and 2.98, respectively. This
extended surfaces are short, efficiency and effectiveness are ex-
result suggests that extended surface could potentially enhance
pected to be very high (Section 6.5). Thus, the addition of SES
thermal performance when compared with its bare counterpart.
greatly enhances the heat transfer performance of the present
The values of efficiency and effectiveness predicted from the three
design.
dimensional conjugate computations are also presented in Fig. 14. It
is found that, satisfactory agreements between the experimental
6.5. Comparative analysis of thermal hydraulic performance and numerical results exist with maximum deviations of 0.9% for h
and 1.2% for z.
The performance of the extended surface is determined by both
the efficiency (h) and effectiveness (z). Effectiveness of extended
surface gives the quantity of additional heat dissipated by the

Fig. 14. Comparison of measured and predicted data, (a) efficiency of SES and (b) Fig. 15. (a) Dependence of pumping power on Reynolds number and (b) pumping
effectiveness of SES. power as a function of the heff.
 S. Rimza et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 82 (2015) 390e402
Fig. 15(a) depicts the variation in pumping power required for
air flow through the test section as a function of Re at a constant
heat flux. It is seen that, the pumping power (Wair) constantly in-
creases with Re in both cases of with and without SES. However,
Wair required for the case with extended surface is significantly
higher at the same Re, due to increase in the pressure drop by the
SES.
Fig. 15(b) compares the variation in the effective heat transfer
coefficient (heff) with pumping power with/without extended
surface. From the figure, it can be observed that heff continuously
increases with Wair. But at identical pumping power, the test
section with extended surface offers a higher heff as compared to
that without SES. When the experimental data are extrapolated
to the prototypical operating condition, the pumping power for
the extended surface test section is found 25% greater and heff
increases more than the double, compared to the bare test
section.
7. Summary and conclusions
An experimental and computational approach has been pro-
posed for the evaluation of thermal hydraulics performance of a
finger type divertor. Experiments have been performed on a full
scale divertor respecting geometric and dynamic similarities. Both
a bare divertor and divertor with sectorial extended surface have
been tested in air (which represents helium in the prototype) for a
wide range of Reynolds number. The geometric parameter of the
divertor with extended surface resembles that of future fusion
power plant DEMO.
The experimental data on pressure drop, heat transfer coeffi-
cient, SES effectiveness and efficiency have been used as a
benchmark for validation of conjugate 3-D numerical model
including keε turbulence model. A novel heat concentrator has
been developed for achieving a high heat flux similar to that of
plasma heating by electrical heating. Both the finger mock-ups
have been numerically simulated towards validation of the nu-
merical model. It is seen that the effective heat transfer coefficient
increases more than double with the addition of SES at the cost of
~25% higher pumping power. The efficiency and effectiveness of
the SES are found to be ~89% and ~2.98, respectively at the pro-
totypical Reynolds number. The numerical results of effective heat
transfer coefficient compare satisfactory with the experimental
data within 6.5% at the prototype Reynolds number. Suitable
correlations have been derived for Nusselt number and pressure
loss coefficient in the finger mock-up as a function of Reynolds
number. Details of velocity and temperature distributions have
been brought out to understand the improvement in heat transfer
rate in the case of divertor with SES.
Acknowledgements
Useful discussion with Dr. Kamalakanta Satpathy and Dr. Deepak
Sangwan regarding numerical simulations of the experimental
mock-up is gratefully acknowledged. The authors thank Mr. Gattu
Ramesh Babu, Mr. Vinay Menon, Mr. Rajmannar Swamy, Mr. Tushar
Patel, Mr. Prakash K. Mokaria, and Mr. Nikunj Patel for their help in
performing the experiment at Vidhata Lab, Gandhinagar (India).
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Nomenclatures
Ac: area of cooled inner surface wall, m2
Ajet: area of jet nozzle, m2
Ap: area of the bare plate between the SES, m2
Ae: surface area of the SES, m2
Ace: cross section area of the SES, m2
D: jet diameter, m
heff: effective heat transfer coefficient, W/(m2 K)
hact: actual heat transfer coefficient, W/(m2 K)
KL: loss coefficient
Ke: thermal conductivity of the SES, W/(m K)
k: turbulent kinetic energy, m2/s2
l: length of the SES, m
402 S. Rimza et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 82 (2015) 390e402

m: mass flow rate, kg/s To: outlet temperature of fluid, K

Nu: Nusselt number V: jet velocity, m/s
p: pressure, Pa Wair: pumping power for air, W
P: perimeter of the SES, m
Pr: Prandtl number Greek symbols
Qnet: net heating power, W
r: radial coordinate, m
Re: Reynolds number ε: rate of dissipation, m2/s3
SES: sectorial extended surface D: difference
T: temperature, K h: efficiency of SES
Tb: bulk temperature of the fluid, (Ti þ To)/2, K m: viscosity of air, N-s/m2
T c : area weighted temperature, K r: density of fluid, kg/m3
TC: thermocouple temperature, K z: effectiveness of the SES
Ti: inlet temperature of fluid, K
 Fusion Engineering and Design 100 (2015) 581–595

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Fusion Engineering and Design

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/fusengdes

Optimal design of divertor heat sink with different geometric

configurations of sectorial extended surfaces
Sandeep Rimza a,∗ , Kamalakanta Satpathy a , Samir Khirwadkar a , Karupanna Velusamy b
a
Divertor and First Wall Technology Development Division, Institute for Plasma Research (IPR), Bhat – 382428, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India
b
Mechanics and Hydraulics Division, Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR), Kalpakkam 603102, India

h i g h l i g h t s

• Effect of design variables in enhancing heat removal potential with pumping power assessed.
• The optimization objective is to minimize the thimble temperature.
• Investigation of optimum design parameters for various Reynolds number.
• Practicability of the optimum designs is verified through structural analysis.
• Benchmark validation of divertor finger mock-up against in-house experiment and good agreement is achieved.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Cooling of fusion reactor divertor by helium is widely accepted due to its chemical and neutronic inert-
Received 17 April 2015 ness and superior safety aspect. However, its poor thermo physical characteristics need high pressure
Received in revised form 22 July 2015 to remove large heat flux encountered in fusion power plant (DEMO). In the perspective of DEMO, it
Accepted 20 August 2015
is desirable to explore efficient cooling technology for divertor that can handle high heat flux. Toward
Available online 5 September 2015
this, a novel sectorial extended surface (SES) was proposed by the authors Rimza et al. (2014) [2]. The
present work focuses on design optimization of divertor finger mock-up with SES to enhance the thermal
Keywords:
hydraulic performance. The maximum thimble temperature is considered as the vital design constraint.
SES
Relative pitch
Various non-dimensional design variables, viz., relative pitch, thickness, jet diameter, the ratio of height
Relative thickness of SES to jet diameter and circumferential position of the SES are considered for the present optimiza-
Jet diameter tion study. The effects of design variables on thermal performance of the divertor are evaluated in the
Nuclear fusion Reynolds number (Re) range of 7.5 × 104 –1.2 × 105 . The analysis reveals that, the heat transfer perfor-
Divertor mance of divertor finger mock-up with SES is improved for two optimum designs having relative pitch
and thickness of 0.30 and 0.56, respectively. Also, it is observed that finger mock-up heat sink with SES
performs better, when the ratio of SES height to jet diameter, reduces to 0.75 at the cost of marginally
higher pumping power. The effects of jet diameter and circumferential position of SES are found to be
counterproductive toward the heat transfer performance. To understand the stress distribution in the
optimized geometries, a combined computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and structural analysis has been
carried out. It is found that deviation in peak stresses among various optimized geometries is not sig-
nificant. The CFD model has been benchmarked against in-house experiments and good agreement is
achieved.
© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction characteristics. In a design of future fusion power plant [1], divertor

Nuclear fusion is a promising energy option for the future, which
is characterized by almost unlimited fuel supplies and best safety
∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: sandeepr@ipr.res.in (S. Rimza), satpathy@ipr.res.in
(K. Satpathy), sameer@ipr.res.in (S. Khirwadkar), kvelu@igcar.gov.in (K. Velusamy).
must handle a high heat flux (∼10 MW/m2 ). Thermal management
of such high heat flux gives rise to numerous engineering issues,
which affect the thermal hydraulic performance and lifetime of
the divertor components. Therefore, the complete divertor target
plate is divided into a number of small volumes known as cassettes
and each cassette is made up of several small cooling finger mock-
ups to reduce the possible thermal stress as depicted in Fig. 1. The
most important design criterion is to keep thimble temperature

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.fusengdes.2015.08.008
0920-3796/© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
582 S. Rimza et al. / Fusion Engineering and Design 100 (2015) 581–595

Over the past few decades, the study of fluid flow and heat
Nomenclature transfer in cooling channel with extended surface has become one
of the active research areas. The extended surfaces enhance the
A area of the jet (m2 ) cooling effect by increasing the total surface area, and occasion-
D diameter of jet (m) ally generating secondary flows. In the past, various investigations
h height of extended surface (m) have been performed on the effects of geometrical parameters on
J pumping power ratio the flow friction and heat transfer in the cooling channel. Toward
Keff effective molecular thermal conductivity of fluid this, heat transfer characteristics of divertor cooling finger mock-
[Keff = Kl + Kt ] (W/m K) up have been investigated with sectorial extended surfaces (SES) by
Kl laminar thermal conductivity of fluid (W/m K) Rimza et al. [2]. They revealed that, addition of SES greatly increases
Kt turbulent thermal conductivity of fluid (W/m K) performance of the finger mock-up as compared to a smooth chan-
K thermal conductivity of solid (W/m K) nel. A variety of heat transfer enhancement techniques have been
k turbulent kinetic energy (m2 /s2 ) evaluated by Baxi [3] and Baxi and Wong [4] to improve the heat
ṁ mass flow rate (kg/s) transfer performance of the divertor. From their studies, they found
eff effective molecular viscosity of the fluid that helium cooled divertor design for fusion machines is feasible,
[eff = l + t ] (N s/m2 ) at a reasonable pumping power. The mass flow rate and pumping
l laminar viscosity of the fluid (N s/m2 ) power required can be minimized by a combination of enhance-
t turbulent viscosity of the fluid (N s/m2 ) ment techniques and use of high pressure gas. Hageman et al. [5]
p pitch of extended surface (m) investigated a plate-type divertor with fins, and found that the
P pressure (Pa) heat transfer performance of divertor increases to a great extent
QT total incident power (Watt) by the addition of fins. Critical heat flux experiments for diver-
q heat flux (MW/m2 ) tor application have been performed by Ezato et al. [6–8]. They
SES sectorial extended surface discovered that, capability of divertor to handle high heat flux
t thickness of extended surface (m) increases significantly, by the use of screw tube and saw toothed fin.
T temperature (K) Sharafat et al. [9] performed a numerical analysis to optimize the
uj velocity components in three spatial directions design of metallic heat exchanger tube for minimum pressure drop
(m/s) through the porous media and for uniformity of surface tempera-
W pumping power (Watt) tures. Youchison et al. [10] reviewed the convective heat transfer
through helium cooled porous metal divertor modules. They found
Greek symbol
that, the porous metal helium divertor exceeded its design specifi-
ε rate of dissipation (m2 /s3 )
cations, and survived at the maximum heat flux of ∼29 MW/m2 . An
 differences
optimization study was performed by Rader et al. [11], to assess the
ı relative
thermal performance of the modular divertor with fin. Their results
 dynamic viscosity (N s/m2 )
revealed that the performance of the divertor enhances with vari-
 density of fluid (kg/m3 )
ation in geometric configuration. Optimization of T-tube divertor
design concept of modular helium cooled units was investigated
by Bruke et al. [12]. Based on their studies, the design was modi-
above ductile brittle transition temperature (∼600 ◦ C) and below fied by changing the dimensions of the slot-jet, inner cartridge and
the brazing filler temperature (1050 ◦ C). Also, it is required to main- tungsten armor to accommodate higher heat fluxes. Experimen-
tain the pumping power of the coolant to be below ∼10% of incident tal and numerical investigations on plate type divertor with the
power. use of metallic foam have been conducted by Gayton et al. [13].

Fig. 1. (a) Schematic of divertor finger mock-up, (b) plan and (c) 3-D view of SES (all dimensions in mm).
 S. Rimza et al. / Fusion Engineering and Design 100 (2015) 581–595 583

Fig. 2. (a) 30◦ sector of computational model of finger mock-up with boundary conditions and (b) close-up view of meshed SES.

Table 1
Comparison of the maximum thimble temperature for different grid size at Re = 1.1 × 105 .

Grid Number of control volume Predicted maximum thimble temperature (◦ C) Percentage difference in temperature

Very coarse 183,647 1057.7 −

Coarse 262,358 1052.2 −0.529%
Fine 375,840 1049.8 −0.280%
Very fine 428,567 1049.7 −0.006%

Their results indicated that the heat transfer performance of the augment the thermal-hydraulic performance to a great extent.
divertor significantly increases with metallic foam as compared to However, studies that compare the effect of the various geomet-
a smooth channel. Ihli and Ilić [14] analyzed the various helium ric parameters on the thermal performance of divertor are very
cooling methods for nuclear fusion devices. It was found that, a limited. Therefore, in the present study the effect of geometric vari-
V-rib-based surface roughness for the first wall and the multi- ation on the thermal performance is evaluated, and an optimal
ple jet impingement cooling technique are useful for heat transfer design of SES is found through numerical simulations. In addi-
enhancement. tion, details of flow structure at various Reynolds number and
Optimization of the fan-shaped pin fin was performed by Moon
and Kim [15] to maximize the heat transfer. They discovered that
the fan-shaped pin fin increases heat transfer by over 20% com-
pared with a circular pin–fin. Metzger et al. [16,17], Fossen [18]
and Chyu et al. [19,20] discovered that the ratio of fin height
to diameter, orientation of the fin, and fin cross-sectional shape
are critical parameters that affect the thermal hydraulic perfor-
mance of the heat sink. An experimental and numerical study
in channels with various dimple depths was performed by Rao
et al. [21,22]. Their study revealed that, dimples enhance the
convective heat transfer in the channel and shallower dimples
show relatively lower friction factors (17.6%) as compared to pin
fin channel. The heat transfer performance due to the orienta-
tion effect in square pin fin heat sinks has been experimentally
investigated by Huang et al. [23]. They reported that the addi-
tion of surface is comparatively more effective for the downward
arrangement. Erek et al. [24] studied the effect of geometrical
parameters on the thermal hydraulic performance of tube heat
exchangers. The results suggested that the distance between the
fins has a substantial effect on heat transfer and pressure drop
features.
The literature review presented above shows that the ther-
mal performance of heat sink can be enhanced by the use of
Fig. 3. Comparison of numerical pressure drop against in-house experimental
extended surface, and the variation in geometric parameters can
results.
584 S. Rimza et al. / Fusion Engineering and Design 100 (2015) 581–595

influence of SES geometric parameters on heat transfer and pres-
sure loss characteristics in the mock-up have been studied. The
principal aim of the optimization study is to reduce the thimble
temperature as much as possible below the brazing filler temper-
ature (1050 ◦ C) to enhance the life of divertor finger mock-ups
design with SES, and simultaneously limit the pressure drop to
a reasonable value to save pumping power. The heat transfer
and flow characteristics in divertor finger mock-up are compared
with experimental data toward validation of the computational
model.
2. Problem description
2.1. Design of finger mock-up with SES
The design of the diverter finger mock-up with SES as depicted
in Fig. 1, consists of high heat flux plasma facing component known
as “tile” (width 17.8 mm) made up of tungsten (W). The pressure
absorbing part is known as a “thimble” (Ø15 mm × 1 mm) fabri-
cated in tungsten alloy (WL-10) which is brazed to the tile. To
enhance the thermal performance, SES made up of tungsten alloys

Fig. 4. Non-dimensional velocity contours and the pathline in x–y plane at a distance of 1 mm from the target surface at different mass flow rates.

Fig. 5. Comparison of turbulent kinetic energy distribution and pathlines in y–z plane (a) without SES and (b) with SES at Re = 1.10 × 105 .
 S. Rimza et al. / Fusion Engineering and Design 100 (2015) 581–595 585

Fig. 6. Non-dimensional temperature contours for reference case ‘B’ at various mass flow rates.

have been brazed to thimble inside the finger mock-up. A concen-
tric steel cartridge (Ø11.2 mm × 1 mm) having a jet diameter 2 mm
is used to cool the divertor finger mock-up. Helium flows radially
outward after passing through an array of SES.
2.2. Numerical approach and mathematical formulation
The computational fluid dynamic software (CFD) code ANSYS
Fluent 14.0 [25], is used for the heat transfer and fluid dynamics
simulation of the finger mock-up with SES. The pressure–velocity
coupling between the Navier–Stokes and continuity equations is
resolved using the SIMPLE algorithm [26]. The realizable k–ε tur-
bulence model is adopted to describe the fluid behavior in divertor
finger mock-up. This model has been successfully used to simulate
the flow and heat transfer in channels with pin fins [2,27–29]. The
convective and diffusive fluxes are combined using the second
order upwind scheme. To declare convergence, the errors in the
discretized momentum and continuity equations are set to a value

Fig. 7. Schematic of variation in heat transfer coefficient along radial position at target surface for divertor without SES (case ‘A’).
586 S. Rimza et al. / Fusion Engineering and Design 100 (2015) 581–595

Table 2
Geometric dimensions of finger mock-up with SES for various studied cases (all dimensions in mm).

Cases Pitch (p) Thickness (t) Height (h) Nozzle Dia. (D) No. of SES Circumferential position of SES (ˇ◦ )

A – – – 2 – –
B 0.8 1 2 2 36 30◦
C 0.7 1 2 2 36 30◦
D 0.6 1 2 2 36 30◦
E 0.5 1 2 2 36 30◦
F 0.6 1.13 2 2 36 30◦
G 0.6 0.9 2 2 36 30◦
H 0.6 0.6 2 2 36 30◦
I 0.6 0.5 2 2 36 30◦
J 0.6 1 1.5 2 36 30◦
K 0.6 1 1.2 2 36 30◦
L 0.6 1 2.5 2 36 30◦
M 0.6 1.13 1.5 2 36 30◦
N 0.6 1.13 2.5 2 36 30◦
O 0.6 1 2 1.7 36 30◦
P 0.6 1. 2 1.5 36 30◦
Q 0.6 1 2 2 54 20◦
R 0.6 1 2 2 72 15◦

below 10−4 , whereas for energy equation it is set to be below 10−8 . In the solid, heat conduction equation for steady state temper-
The following equations are used to describe the fluid flow and ature field is given by:
heat transfer process of incompressible steady state fluid [26]:  
∂ ∂T
K =0 (4)
∂xi ∂xi
• Continuity equation:
The Reynolds number based on the hydraulic diameter of the jet
∂(ui ) is defined as:
=0 (1)
∂x Re = ṁ D/( Ajet ) (5)
• Momentum equation: Where, the Ajet is the area of the jet, ṁ is mass flow rate,  is the
  dynamic viscosity of helium, and D is the diameter of the jet.
∂(ui ) ∂p ∂ ∂ui Pressure drop (P) is one of the most important factors, which
uj =− + eff (2)
∂xj ∂xi ∂xj ∂xj reflects the hydraulic performance of the finger mock-up and is
calculated by,
• Energy equation:
P = Pin − Pout (6)
 
∂(Cp ui T ) ∂ ∂T where Pin and Pout are the coolant pressures at inlet and outlet of
= Keff (3) the finger mock-up.
∂xi ∂xi ∂xi
The pumping power which is required to circulate helium in the
finger mock-up, to cool the target surface is determined by,

W = (ṁ/) P (7)

To optimize the design of the divertor finger mock-up with SES,

overall comparisons are necessary among different geometric con-
figurations of SES. In order to compare the performance of various
designs of divertor finger mock-up with SES, the incident heat flux
and coolant inlet temperature are maintained at 10 MW/m2 and
600 ◦ C, respectively. For comparison, the pumping power ratio (J)
is defined as:

J = W/QT (8)

In the above equation  is the density of helium at the bulk temper-

ature (Tin + Tout )/2, and P is the pressure drop across the divertor
finger mock-up section. Additionally, QT is the total incident power,
and W is the power required to circulate helium through the finger
mock-up.

2.3. Computational domain and boundary conditions

A schematic of computational model with boundary conditions

is depicted in Fig. 2. In order to reduce the computational effort
and the existence of symmetry a 30◦ segment of divertor fin-
ger mock-up with SES is modeled in the present simulation as
Fig. 8. Schematic of studied cases for finger mock-up with SES. shown in Fig. 2(a). To capture the turbulence phenomenon near the
 S. Rimza et al. / Fusion Engineering and Design 100 (2015) 581–595 587

Fig. 9. Comparison of (a) tile and (b) thimble temperature against Re with different
ıp . Fig. 10. Comparison of (a) pressure drop and (b) pumping power ratio against Re
with various ıp .

solid/fluid interface region, the adequate mesh density within the
boundary layer is provided, and y+ values are maintained around
∼1 [25]. The tile, thimble, and extended surface are specified as
solid materials having temperature dependent material properties
[30]. Thermal properties of Helium are also considered as tempera-
ture dependent. However, it may be indicated that the temperature
rise of the helium in the divertor assembly is only about ∼60 K.
The flow of helium in the finger mock-up is considered to be
incompressible and steady. No-slip conditions are imposed at the
walls and at the extended surfaces. In the numerical simulation,
the temperature and pressure at the coolant inlet are 600 ◦ C and
10 MPa, respectively. Heat flux 10 MW/m2 is applied at the top

Fig. 11. Comparison of turbulence kinetic energy distribution around SES for reference case ‘B’ and optimized cases ‘D’ at Re = 1.10 × 105 .
588 S. Rimza et al. / Fusion Engineering and Design 100 (2015) 581–595
of the finger mock-up. Thermal hydraulic performance of finger
mock-up with SES has been analyzed for a wide range of Re number
7.5 × 104 –1.2 × 105 .
2.4. Grid sensitivity analysis
Grid independence tests were performed to arrive at an opti-
mal grid size for the numerical simulation. Four different grid sizes
were considered for the reference case (case ‘B’) [2] with the afore-
said boundary conditions. The maximum thimble temperature is
considered as the target variable for grid sensitivity, because it is
the main design constraint in the present analysis. The result of the
maximum thimble temperature for different grid sizes at prototyp-
ical Reynolds number (Re = 1.1 × 105 ) is presented in Table 1. The
result shows that, there is no significant difference in the computed
result between fine and very fine grids. Therefore, the fine grid is
selected for the simulation, as a compromise between accuracy and
computational time.
Fig. 12. Comparison of (a) tile and (b) thimble temperature versus Re with various
ıt .
3. Validation with experiment
In order to verify the ability of the computational model and
enhance the level of confidence in numerical solutions, an exper-
imental study was conducted to predict the thermal hydraulic
performance of a reference divertor design with proposed SES
[31]. The forced convection heat transfer characteristics depend
on Reynolds and Prandtl numbers. In the air model experiments,
Reynolds and Prandtl number similarities are ensured. Typical heat
flux value encountered in the prototype is 10 MW/m2 while the
heat flux simulated in the experiment by electrical heating employ-
ing a ‘heat concentrator’ is 0.75 MW/m2 . However in the numerical
simulations pertaining to prototype, temperature dependent He
properties have been used. The target material in the experiment
was brass alloy, instead of tungsten due to the similar values of
thermal conductivity of brass and tungsten alloy. The benchmark
experimental data were used to validate the three dimensional con-
jugate heat transfer model. The numerical results were found to be
in good agreement with the experimental results as presented in
Fig. 3.
Fig. 13. Dependence of (a) pressure drop and (b) pumping power ratio verses Re for
various ıt .
 S. Rimza et al. / Fusion Engineering and Design 100 (2015) 581–595
4. Results and discussions
4.1. Effect of Reynolds number on heat transfer
The non-dimensional velocity (U/Uin ) contours and the path-
lines in a plane at height Z = 1 mm from target surface at various
mass flow rates for the reference case (case ‘B’) is depicted in
Fig. 4. It can be seen that at the low mass flow rate, the flow field
is smooth without any zones of recirculation. However, as mass
flow rate increases standing vortex pair is observed in the wake
region of central SES, with further increase in the helium flow rate
intense recirculation zones appear behind the middle row of SES
also. These intense recirculations enhance the heat transfer when
compared to a smooth channel. For example the contour of tur-
bulence kinetic energy (TKE) at an identical mass flow rate for
the case of smooth channel and a channel with SES is depicted in
Fig. 5. It is seen that the TKE is maximum at the entrance due to
high velocity and acceleration of the fluid through a jet impinge-
ment. But provision of SES has enhanced the level of turbulence in
the mainstream, particularly around the SES walls due to vortex
formulation.
Fig. 6 presents the non-dimensional temperature contours
of the target and extended surface walls at various mass flow
rates. It is observed that, the temperature distribution at the front
row of the extended surfaces has a lower average temperature
compared to the SES in peripheral row. This is due to a lower
average temperature of coolant at the inner row of extended
Fig. 14. Comparison of thimble temperature distributions in the finger mock-up with SES at Re = 1.10 × 105 .
589
surface, which continuously increases when the fluid passes from
inner to outer arrays of SES. It is clearly seen from the figure that
the peak temperature at the hot surface, decreases as the mass
flow rate increases. The presence of horseshoe vortices (Fig. 4),
and the increase in surface area for interaction of coolant cause the
higher temperature gradients. Therefore, a higher heat transfer
coefficient and a lower average wall temperature are attained.
4.2. Appropriate location of central SES
Detailed studies on the distribution of heat transfer coefficient
due to impingement of central jet has been carried out for plac-
ing first row of SES at the appropriate location to maximize heat
transfer enhancement. This study is extremely important because
due to the close proximity of the extended surface at the center,
jet does not diffuse easily and hence leading to a higher pressure
drop. The predicted variation of the local wall heat transfer coeffi-
cient along radial position on the target surface for divertor without
SES is shown in Fig. 7. It is seen that the heat transfer coefficient
is maximum in the central region of the plate due to high fluid
velocity emanating from the jet, and starts to decrease gradually
beyond 1.9 mm. Hence, the first row of extended surface should be
provided outside of the peak heat transfer zone that will enhance
the performance of the extended surface with a minimum pressure
drop.
590 S. Rimza et al. / Fusion Engineering and Design 100 (2015) 581–595
4.3. Effect of different parameters on finger mock-up performance
An elaborate parametric study has been performed to find
the effect of each heat sink parameter on heat transfer and
pressure loss. Here, the most vital design parameter of interest
is maximum thimble temperature, which is limited by filler
material melting temperature in brazed joint. In order to achieve
best cooling performance, various cases for non-dimensional
geometric parameters such as relative pitch (ıp = p/h), thickness
(ıt = t/h), the ratio of SES height to jet diameter h/D, the circum-
ferential position of SES (ˇ◦ ), and jet diameter (D) have been
investigated for the divertor finger mock-up. For each case a
wide range of parameter is considered, while the other geometric
parameters are kept constant. Geometrical details of the various
cases studied are presented in Table 2. Case ‘A’ denotes the case
of divertor without SES, whereas case ‘B’ is considered as the
initial reference case with extended surface for the optimization
studies. Schematic of a few cases studied is depicted in Fig. 8. All
the results are compared at the prototypical Reynolds number
(Re = 1.1 × 105 ).
Fig. 15. Comparison of (a) tile and (b) thimble temperature versus Re with various
h/D ratios for case ‘D’.
4.3.1. Comparison of finger mock-up at different SES relative pitch
A comparison of tile and thimble temperature among different
SES relative pitches (ıP ) with same SES height (h = 2 mm), thick-
ness (t = 1 mm), and Circumferential position (ˇ = 30◦ ) are shown
in Fig. 9(a) and (b). It can be noticed that, the tile and thimble tem-
peratures initially decrease with a reduction in the SES spaces at
the identical Re numbers. This suggests that decreasing the relative
pitch makes the vortices stronger, and intensifies the fluid mixing
causing high heat transfer rate. Temperatures of tile and thimble
reduce as relative pitch decreases up to 0.30 (case ‘D’), and further
decrease in pitch (case ‘E’) leads to an increase in tile and thimble
temperature, presumably due to the trap of coolant between the
vicinity of SES. The lowest tile and thimble temperatures achieved
in case ‘D’ are respectively ∼14 ◦ C and ∼18 ◦ C less than the reference
case ‘B’ at identical prototypical Re.
Fig. 10(a) and (b) presents the variation in the pressure drops
(P) and pumping power ratio (J) as a function of Re number and
pitch. It is clear that both P and J increase continuously with Re
number, as expected. The case ‘D’ offers a slightly higher pumping
power ratio compared to the reference case ‘B’. The increase in
Fig. 16. Comparison of (a) pressure drop and (b) pumping power ratio versus Re
with various h/D ratios for case ‘D’.
 S. Rimza et al. / Fusion Engineering and Design 100 (2015) 581–595
pressure drop is due to the complex interaction between the
SES and vortices, as ıP decreases. The result indicates that when
ıp = 0.6 mm, an improved heat transfer performance is exhib-
ited by case ‘D’ and it has been chosen for further optimization
studies.
4.3.1.1. Discussion on heat transfer at various SES relative pitch.
Fig. 11 demonstrates the comparison of the turbulent kinetic energy
(TKE) normalized by the bulk mean velocity squared, at a dis-
tance of 1.5 mm away from the target surface at Re = 1.10 × 105 .
It can be observed that as the relative pitch decreases, the turbu-
lence level in the mainstream flow region increases, and maximum
turbulent mixing level appears in the center around the vicin-
ity of SES. Also, the eddies formed at the back of the last row of
SES, due to increase in space between the last row of SES and
thimble are shown in Fig. 11. These vortices also help in enhanc-
ing the heat transfer coefficient in case ‘D’, as compared to case
‘B’. From the above discussion, it is clear that the thermal per-
formance of divertor finger mock-up with SES increases with a
decrease in the relative pitch, at the cost of reasonable pressure
drop.
Fig. 17. Comparison of (a) tile and (b) thimble temperature as a function of Re with
various h/D ratios for case ‘F’.
591
4.3.2. Comparison of finger mock-up at different SES relative
thickness
The effects of relative thickness (ıt ) on the temperature and
pressure drop in divertor finger mock-up with SES are shown
in Figs. 12 and 13. Other geometric parameters viz., p = 0.6 mm,
h = 2 mm and ˇ = 30◦ are kept constant in the various cases stud-
ied. Fig. 12(a) and (b) exhibit the effect of ıt on the tile and
thimble temperature. It can be seen that the temperature readily
decreases when the thickness of SES increases for all the val-
ues of Re number. This is due to effective heat transfer caused
by increasing the surface area exposed to the fluid medium. Due
to space limitation, it is not possible to increase the ıt to above
the 0.57. Further reduction in temperatures of tile and thimble
has been examined by adding another row of extended sur-
face by decreasing ıt as shown in Fig. 8. One can notice that
with the reduction in thickness, thermal performance of finger
mock-up with SES becomes worse. Compared to cases ‘B’ and ‘D’,
decrease in thimble temperature achieved in case ‘F’ is ∼27.5 ◦ C
and ∼8 ◦ C, respectively at identical prototypical Reynolds number
(Re = 1.10 × 105 ).
Fig. 13(a) and (b) illustrates the dependence of pressure
drop and pumping power ratio on Re number for various values of
Fig. 18. Comparison of (a) pressure drop and (b) pumping power ratio as a function
of Re with various h/D ratios for case ‘F’.
592 S. Rimza et al. / Fusion Engineering and Design 100 (2015) 581–595
SES thickness. From Fig. 13(a), it is observed that the pressure drop
in divertor finger mock-up decreases as SES thickness increase,
because the momentum of coolant reduces by an increase in sur-
face area. As a consequence a lower pumping power needed to
remove the heat loads from finger mock-up. The maximum dif-
ference observed in P values of case ‘F’ and case ‘B’ is ∼5.2 kPa.
Similarly the difference observed in P values of case ‘F’ and case
‘D’ is ∼10 kPa at same prototypical Re. It should be noticed that
when the ıt is decreasing, the P and J of finger mock-up with
SES increase significantly. The reason is that adding another row
of SES, also offers resistance to the flow of helium through finger
mock-up. Further, cases ‘D’ and ‘F’ both have been considered for
further optimization studies to find the effect of h/D on the heat
transfer performance.
4.3.2.1. Discussion on heat transfer at various SES relative thickness.
The temperature distributions of thimble in the finger mock-up
with SES, as predicted by the computational model are depicted in
Fig. 14 for Re = 1.10 × 105 . It is seen that for identical Re, cases ‘D’ and
‘F’ leads to reduce thimble temperature compared to the reference
case ‘B’. It is due to the improvement in the heat transfer rate by
an increase in surface area and turbulence. It can be noticed that,
the surface temperature of the thimble at the center location has
a lower average temperature and increases in the radial direction.
The rapid decrease in temperature at the center is due to direct
impingement of a high velocity jet, and lower average temperature
of coolant at the front row of SES. This leads to high heat dissipation
in divertor finger mock-up with SES, as seen in Fig. 6.
4.3.3. Comparison of finger mock-up at different h/D ratio
Fig. 15(a) and (b) presents the variations of tile and thimble tem-
perature with various heights to jet diameter ratio for the case ‘D’,
keeping ıp , ıt and ˇ◦ as constant. It can be observed that tem-
perature is low when the h/D ratio is small, because wall heat
transfer coefficient increases with reduction in height of SES. The
value of the tile and thimble temperature is minimum for case ‘J’,
Fig. 19. Comparison of the wall heat transfer coefficient contour plots at Re = 1.10 × 105 .
where h/D = 0.75 and a further decrease in h/D produces only a small
change in temperature. The maximum reduction in thimble tem-
perature achieved in case ‘J’ is 30 ◦ C compared to case ‘B’ and 13 ◦ C
compared to the case ‘D’ at same prototypical Re.
From Fig. 16(a) and (b), it can be seen that the pressure drop
dramatically increases as the ratio h/D decreases. It shows that
temperature of the tile and thimble are significantly lower, but the
corresponding flow resistance is much higher than reference case.
This is due to the strongly interruption of flow by SES. The increase
in P observed in case ‘J’ is 51 kPa, compared to case ‘D’ and the
increase in the pumping power ratio is ∼3.5% at equal prototypical
Re.
The effects of h/D ratio on the temperature and pressure drop
for the case ‘F’ are also shown in Figs. 17 and 18. A similar study
was also performed for case ‘F’, and same phenomenon observed
in studied cases. The temperature drop in thimble observed in case
‘M’ (h/D = 0.75) is 37 ◦ C and 13.5 ◦ C, respectively, compared to cases
‘B’ and ‘F’ at Re. The increase in P observed in case ‘M’ is 42 kPa
compared to case ‘F’, and corresponding increase in pumping power
ratio is ∼3%. From the above result, we find that h/D ratio has signif-
icant influence on the thermal-hydraulic performance of divertor
finger mock-up. It is observed that, case ‘J’ and ‘M’ appreciably
reduce the thimble temperature at the cost of marginally higher
pumping power ratio than the target value by ∼3% and ∼2.3%,
respectively.
4.3.3.1. Discussion on heat transfer at various h/D ratio. In order to
develop further understanding into the influence of the h/D on the
heat transfer mechanism in the divertor finger mock-up, a com-
parison of the contour plots of the wall heat transfer coefficient for
cases ‘J’ (h/D = 0.75) and ‘D’ (h/D = 1) is depicted in Fig. 19. It can
observe that the peak heat transfer coefficient occurs near the cen-
ter of the jet in both of the cases, because the velocity of fluid is high
at the center. It can be clearly seen that, heat transfer coefficient is
high in case of ‘J’ compared to the case ‘D’. The reason is that, high
velocity jet impinges directly on the target surface without losing
 S. Rimza et al. / Fusion Engineering and Design 100 (2015) 581–595 593

Fig. 20. Plan and 3D views of different angular configuration of SES (a) 30◦ , (b) 20◦ and (c) 15◦ .

Fig. 21. Von-Mises stress distribution for various optimized design variants.
594 S. Rimza et al. / Fusion Engineering and Design 100 (2015) 581–595

Table 3 within allowable limits of 378 MPa [30], and the variation in the
Results of different jet diameter on thermal performance at Re = 1.1 × 105 .
maximum peak stress is insignificant (<1.4%).
Case Unit P O D

Jet diameter mm 1.5 1.7 2 5. Conclusions

◦
Maximum tile temperature C 1545.6 1522.8 1504.2
◦
Maximum thimble temperature C 1075.1 1049.5 1032.2
Pressure drop (P) kPa 240.87 200.37 155.60 Detailed parametric studies have been carried out toward geo-
Relative pumping power ratio (J) % 14.93 12.42 9.4 metrical optimization of divertor finger mock-up with SES. For this
purpose, 3-dimensional conduction in the solid walls and convec-
tion in high pressure helium jet have been solved as a conjugate
Table 4
Results of various circumferential positions of SES on thermal performance at problem. The computational model has been validated against in-
Re = 1.1 × 105 . house experiments carried out in a novel heat concentrator with
air as the simulant. The non-dimensional geometric parameters
Case Unit R Q D
considered for the optimization are SES relative pitch (ıp = p/h),
Circumferential position of SES (ˇ) – 15◦ 20◦ 30◦ thickness (ıt = t/h), the ratio of SES height to jet diameter (h/D), the
Number of SES 72 54 36
◦ circumferential position of SES (ˇ◦ ), and jet diameter (D). The flow
Maximum tile temperature C 1532.7 1525.2 1504.2
Maximum thimble temperature ◦
C 1061.3 1052.9 1032.2 parameter varied is the jet Reynolds number. The following are the
Pressure drop (P) kPa 173.72 169.46 155.60 major conclusions of the parametric study:
Relative pumping power ratio (J) % 10.99 10.5 9.4

• The tile and thimble temperatures decrease considerably

its momentum to the surrounding flow, leading to the associated
increase in heat transfer coefficient.
4.3.4. Comparison of finger mock-up at different jet diameter
The sensitivity analysis of jet diameter on thermal perfor-
mance of finger mock-ups has been performed for prototypical
Re = 1.10 × 105 . The outcome of the analysis is presented in Table 3.
As shown in Table 3 a reduction in jet diameter of finger mock-
ups experiences an increment in temperature and pressure drop,
which deteriorate the heat transfer performance. Further studies
for the case ‘F’ have not been performed as already a reduction in
the thermal performance has been observed in the former case.
4.3.5. Comparison of finger mock-up at various circumferential
positions of SES
The effect of circumferential position of SES on thermo hydraulic
performance of finger mock-up has been studied for various con-
figurations. From Fig. 20, it can be seen that when circumferential
positions varied, the corresponding number of SES is also varied.
The circumferential positions of SES (ˇ = 30◦ ) are same for all cases
discussed in the above section. The main objective this study is to
assess the heat transfer capability by varying the circumferential
position (15◦ and 20◦ ), and find the effect of increase in SES. Tem-
perature and pressure drop values for the case ‘D’, ‘O’ and ‘P’ are
presented in Table 4. From Table 4 it can be noticed that, thermal
performance of finger mock-up with SES decreases significantly,
when ˇ◦ decreases. This is presumably due to a reduction in the
surface area of SES. It indicates that the heat transfer is counterpro-
ductive toward the increase in the SES. Similar observations have
been noticed for case F also.
4.4. Structural analysis
A combined CFD and structural analysis have been carried out
to evaluate the stresses induced in the system due to high pressure
(10 MPa) and large heat flux (10 MW/m2 ) for various optimized
designs of divertor finger mock-up using ANSYS Workbench 14.0
[25]. To determine the stress distributions, the pressure and tem-
perature distributions obtained from the CFD optimization studies
are imported to the finite element tool [25]. Temperature depen-
dant properties are considered [30] for tungsten (W) and tungsten
lanthanum oxide (WL-10). To prevent the movement in the verti-
cal direction, constraints are applied to the thimble bottom surface.
Fig. 21 illustrates the Von-Mises stress distribution for optimized
geometries. The peak stresses occur at the tile-thimble interface in
all the cases. For all the optimized designs, Von-Mises stresses are
whereas the pressure drop and the pumping power ratio increase
significantly with an increase in flow Reynolds number.
• The thermal performance of finger mock-up with SES is signif-
icantly improved for the two optimum designs, having relative
pitch and thickness of 0.30 (case ‘D’) and 0.56 (case ‘F’), compared
to the reference design (case ‘B’).
• The influence of h/D ratio on the performance of divertor finger
mock-up heat sink is noticeable. It is observed that, in cases ‘J’
and ‘M’ (h/D = 0.75) the tile and thimble temperatures apprecia-
bly reduce with marginally higher pumping power ratio than the
target value by ∼3%.
• The effect of jet diameter and circumferential position of SES are
found to be counter productive toward the heat transfer perfor-
mance.
A combined computational fluid dynamics and structural
analysis approach is adopted to simulate the Von-Mises stress dis-
tribution in divertor finger mock-up heat sink. The results show
that the deviation in peak stresses for various optimized geome-
tries are within the design limits. The maximum stress deviation
for the optimized design is ∼1.4%.
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 Fusion Engineering and Design 89 (2014) 2647–2658

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Fusion Engineering and Design

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/fusengdes

Numerical studies on helium cooled divertor finger mock up with

sectorial extended surfaces
Sandeep Rimza a,∗ , Kamalakanta Satpathy a , Samir Khirwadkar a , Karupanna Velusamy b
a
Divertor and First wall Technology Development Division, Institute for Plasma Research (IPR), Bhat 382428 Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India
b
Mechanics and Hydraulics Division, Reactor Design Group (RDG), Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR), Kalpakkam 603102, Tamilnadu, India

h i g h l i g h t s

• Studies on heat transfer enhancement for divertor finger mock-up.

• Heat transfer characteristics of jet impingement with extended surfaces have been investigated.
• Effect of critical parameters that influence the thermal performance of the finger mock-up by CFD approach.
• Effect of extended surface in enhancing heat removal potential with pumping power assessed.
• Practicability of the chosen design is verified by structural analysis.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Jet impinging technique is an advance divertor concept for the design of future fusion power plants. This
Received 11 February 2014 technique is extensively used due to its high heat removal capability with reasonable pumping power
Received in revised form 10 June 2014 and for safe operation. In this design, plasma-facing components are fabricated with numerous fingers
Accepted 4 July 2014
cooled by helium jets to reduce the thermal stresses. The present study is focused towards finding an
Available online 6 August 2014
optimum performance of one such finger mock-up through systematic computational fluid dynamics
(CFD) studies. Heat transfer characteristics of jet impingement have been numerically investigated with
Keywords:
sectorial extended surfaces (SES). The result shows that addition of SES enhances heat removal potential
Jet-impingement
CFD
with minimum pumping power. Detailed parametric studies on critical parameters that influence thermal
Sectorial extended surfaces performance of the finger mock-up have been analyzed. Thermo-mechanical analysis has been carried
Tile out through finite element based approach to know the state of stress in the assembly as a result of
Thimble large temperature gradients. It is seen that the stresses are within the permissible limits for the present
Fusion reactor design. The whole numerical simulation has been carried out using general-purpose CFD software (ANSYS
FLUENT, Release 14.0, User Guide, Ansys, Inc., 2011). Benchmark validation studies have been performed
against high-heat flux experiments (B. Končar, P. Norajitra, K. Oblak, Appl. Therm. Eng., 30, 697–705,
2010) and a good agreement is noticed between the present simulation and the reported results.
© 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Nuclear fusion programme is one of the most promising options
to meet the increasing energy demand. However, there are inter-
esting challenges in successful design of the fusion power plants.
One among them is design of the divertor which is an important
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +91 8141511655.
E-mail addresses: sandeepr@ipr.res.in, sandeeprimza13@gmail.com (S. Rimza),
satpathy@ipr.res.in (K. Satpathy), sameer@ipr.res.in (S. Khirwadkar),
kvelu@igcar.gov.in (K. Velusamy).
part of the fusion power plant that handles extremely high heat
flux generated in interior of the core. The function of the divertor
is to remove fusion ash, plasma impurities and unburned fuel from
the reactor first wall which affects the quality of the plasma. Due to
its location in the reactor, it must survive massive volumetric heat-
ing by neutron and surface heating results from radiation and all
plasma exhaust. Usage of helium as coolant has favourable safety
characteristics, and it is capable of efficient heat transfer.
Different type of helium-cooled divertor concepts has already
been proposed by Raffray et al. [3] for a fusion power plant appli-
cation. One of the designs uses small tungsten fingers, cooled by
high pressure helium jets. The challenges and the design issues

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.fusengdes.2014.07.008
0920-3796/© 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
2648 S. Rimza et al. / Fusion Engineering and Design 89 (2014) 2647–2658

Ihli and Ilić [9]. Among different cooling technologies, V-rib based
Nomenclatures surface roughness approach for the first wall, the multiple impinge-
ment cooling techniques were identified as a suitable advantageous
A area of top surface wall, m2 method. A comprehensive review of varying helium cooled
Ac area of cooled inner surface wall, m2 divertor concepts for fusion power plant applications was reported
Ap area of bare plate between the sectorial extended by Tillack et al. [10]. In their review, they summarized recent US
surface, m2 efforts on fusion power plants through analytical and experimental
Ae surface area of the sectorial extended surface, m2 studies. Key issues were identified and future R&D (viz., fabrica-
Ace cross section area of the sectorial extended surface, tion, joining, material behaviour and reliability) has been widely
m2 discussed.
heff effective heat transfer coefficient, W/(m2 K) Thermal hydraulic characteristics of fusion reactor components
hact actual heat transfer coefficient, W/(m2 K) were analyzed by Arbeiter et al. [11] through various turbulence
Ke thermal conductivity of the sectorial extended sur- models using CFD code STAR–CD, and the results were validated
face, W/(m K) against experiments. It is seen that, k–ε turbulence model with
k turbulent kinetic energy, m2 /s2 damping functions gives more accurate results for high heat flux
ṁ mass flow rate, kg/s test module. In order to increase the turbulence in the gas, ther-
P perimeter of the sectorial extended surface, m mal performance of the divertor design was experimentally studied
Re reynolds number by Mills et al. [12]. The objective of their studies is to assess the
q heat flux incident on the cooled surface, W/m2 effect of fin’s addition on the thermal performance. Effect of fins
t thickness of thimble, m on the heat transfer coefficient of plate-type divertor was investi-
T temperature, K gated by Hageman et al. [13]. The results suggested that, adding fins
Tb bulk temperature of the fluid, (Ti + To )/2, K nearly double the effective heat transfer coefficient. Thermal stress
Ti inlet temperature of fluid, K is regarded as an important limit for performance of the fusion
To outlet temperature of fluid, K power plants. Towards this, Widak and Norajitra [14] numerically
Tc average temperature of cooled surface, K investigated the thermo-mechanical aspect through finite element
WHe pumping power for helium, W (FE) approach. Experimental study of DEMO helium cooled divertor
target mock-ups has been done by Ovchinnikov et al. [15]. The
Greek symbols
objective of their study is to estimate thermal and pumping efficien-
ε rate of dissipation, m2 /s3
cies of the divertor and concluded that, helium distributed cartridge
 efficiency sectorial extended surface
options have high heat flux removing capability within mass flow
 density of fluid, kg/m3
ranges of 5–15 g/s.
 effectiveness of the sectorial extended surface
From the above literatures, it is observed that various designs for
helium cooled divertor have been discussed but limited heat trans-
Subscripts
fer enhancement techniques have been addressed. It is evident that
act actual
manufacturing difficulties and high pressure drop associated with
b bulk
divertor design is of main concern. Towards this, a new type of
c cooled
sectorial extended surface (SES) has been proposed. This particular
ce cross section of extended surface
design is easy to manufacture and cost effective. The main objective
e extended surface
of this paper is to numerically evaluate how addition of SES affects
eff effective
the thermal hydraulics performance of finger type divertor. In this
He helium
regard, solution methodologies along with governing equations
i inlet
are presented in Section 2. As a precursor, benchmark valida-
o outlet
tion studies have been performed for cooling finger against high
p plate
heat flux experiments [2]. Effective heat transfer coefficients and
pressure losses related to different heat fluxes, flow rates are
numerically studied and are presented in Section 3. Enhance-
associated with the helium cooling viz., manifold sizes, pumping ment of heat transfer is analyzed by introducing SES. Comparative
power, and leak prevention are studied by Baxi [4]. It was demon- studies for fluid flow features viz., turbulence kinetic energy, tem-
strated that, the manifold sizes and the pumping power can be perature and heat flux distributions are presented in Section 4.
reduced to acceptable levels as per the design criteria. Baxi and Finally, major conclusions have been arrived and are presented in
Wong [5] reviewed various heat transfer enhancement techniques Section 6.
(viz., swirl tape, roughening, porous media etc.) to reduce the flow,
pumping power and pressure requirements in helium cooling for
fusion reactor applications. A modular helium cooled divertor for 2. Solution Methodology
power plant application was studied by Diegele et al. [6] with
an improved heat transfer technique. The result showed that the 2.1. Design description
design has the potential of removing high heat flux (∼15 MW/m2 ).
High Efficiency Thermal Shield (HETS) concept that relies on an The whole divertor is divided into a number of small volumes
abrupt change of momentum of the fluid was proposed by Piz- known as cassettes, which are independently cooled. The plasma
zuto et al. [7]. The numerical studies along with experiments facing components of the divertor are splitted into a number of fin-
indicate that HETS solution is viable in order to attain a good ger mock-ups in order to reduce the thermal stress, as presented
heat transfer with limited pumping power. An advanced He-cooled in Fig. 1. Each mock-up consists of small hexagonal tile made up of
divertor concept (DEMO) was studied by Ihli et al. [8] with mod- tungsten (W) with sacrificial layers used as the thermal shield. Tiles
ular target plate design through CFD simulations and achieved are brazed to another material of tungsten alloy (WL-10) known as
best cooling performance with jet impingement technique. Various the thimble. A steel cartridge carrying the nozzle is placed con-
cooling technologies for future fusion power plants were studied by centrically inside the thimble. Fluid enters through the nozzle and
 S. Rimza et al. / Fusion Engineering and Design 89 (2014) 2647–2658 2649

Fig. 1. (a) Schematic of test section and (b) cross sectional view (all dimensions are in mm).

flows radially outwards through the space between cartridge and
the thimble.
Thermo-hydraulic performance of the mock up has been stud-
ied with addition of extended surfaces which is placed between
cartridge and the thimble with a supporting plate of 1 mm thick-
ness, as depicted in Fig. 2. The circumferential pitch was varied from
first row to last row that leads to reduce the expense of machin-
ing to cover the top cooled surface. Extended surfaces are angularly
constructed at every 30◦ sector, resulting 36 numbers of extended
surface with 1 mm thickness, 0.8 mm pitch and 2 mm height. Cir-
cumferential gap between the extended surfaces are maintained
at 0.4 mm. WL-10 is used as the material for SES due to its
favourable machining property. The most important design crite-
rion is to keep thimble temperature above ductile brittle transition
temperature (DBTT, ∼600 ◦ C) and below re-crystallization temper-
ature (RCT, ∼1300 ◦ C). The brazing filler temperature of tiles and
thimble should not exceed 1050 ◦ C [2] and pumping power should
be ∼10% of incident power. The aim of this design is to reduce
the temperature of the thimble as low as possible below brazing
melting point at the expense of small pressure drop.
2.2. Governing equations
The steady state forms of continuity, momentum and energy
equations for an incompressible fluid used for the present numer-
ical simulation are described in [16]. To resolve the Reynolds
stresses, realizable k–ε turbulence model is employed with buoy-
ancy, because it accurately predicts the performance for separation,

Fig. 2. (a) Bottom and (b) 3D view of SES (all dimensions are in mm).
2650 S. Rimza et al. / Fusion Engineering and Design 89 (2014) 2647–2658

Fig. 3. (a) Geometry of cooling finger mock-up for validation (b) global grid pattern and (c) close-up view of CFD mesh.

Table 1
Grid sensitivity analysis.

Mesh Control volume Minimum grid spacing (mm) Maximum tile temperature (◦ C) Maximum thimble temperature (◦ C) CPU time per iterations (s)

M1 2.5 × 105 0.2 1687 1087 3

M2 3.5 × 105 0.15 1675 1064 5
M3 5 × 105 0.1 1651 1004 8
M4 6 × 105 0.08 1649 1003 12

Maximum tile and thimble temperature reported [2] = 1660.3 ◦ C, 1010.73 ◦ C

recirculation, and flows involving boundary layers under pressure
gradients [1] and also used to simulate flow and heat transfer in pin
fin channel [17]. Pressure-velocity coupling between the incom-
pressible Navier–Stokes and continuity equations is resolved using
the Semi Implicit Pressure Linked Equations (SIMPLE) algorithm.
To declare convergence at any iteration, the absolute errors in
the discretized momentum and continuity equations are set to be
10−4 where as for energy, it is set to be 10−6 .
2.3. Boundary condition
Due to exist of symmetry, a 30◦ sector model is considered
for the present numerical simulation. Temperature dependent
material properties are taken into consideration for the tile, thim-
ble, and supporting plate with extended surfaces [18] whereas
constant material properties are considered for cartridge. Carrier
fluid (helium) is considered to be steady incompressible. Initial

Fig. 4. (a) Comparison between Helium pressure drop & temperature difference with heat flux. (b) Comparison maximum tile and thimble temperature against different
heat flux.
 S. Rimza et al. / Fusion Engineering and Design 89 (2014) 2647–2658 2651

Fig. 5. Temperature distribution for mass flow rate of 6.8 g/s with a heat flux of 10 MW/m2 (a) reported results [2] and (b) present simulation.

temperature and pressure of the fluid are 600 ◦ C and 10 MPa, • No-slip conditions are imposed on the walls and at the extended
respectively [2]. The boundary conditions for the present 3D surfaces.
numerical simulations are as follows:

• Symmetry boundary conditions are imposed on the 30◦ cut sec-
tions.
• Adiabatic boundary conditions are imposed on outer sides of the
domain.
• Top surface of the domain is imposed with constant heat flux.
• Specified mass flow rate and temperature are considered at the
inlet where as the outlet is specified with constant pressure.
3. Benchmark Validation
Benchmarking the numerical calculation against suitable exper-
imental data is of vital importance in CFD studies. To this end, the
reference finger geometry of [2] is considered for the validation
where high heat flux experiments [15] have been reported. The
computational domain with the global grid patterns considered in
the validation studies are depicted in Fig. 3.

Fig. 6. (a) Sectional top view of turbulence kinetic energy distribution (m2 /s2 ) around SES (b) bottom view of 30◦ sector of SES (c) velocity distribution (m/s).
2652 S. Rimza et al. / Fusion Engineering and Design 89 (2014) 2647–2658

Fig. 7. Temperature distribution of cooling finger design (a) without SES and (b) with SES.

3.1. Grid sensitivity analysis in details. Fig. 6 depicts distribution of turbulence kinetic energy
with the presence of SES. It is seen that, maximum kinetic energy
In a CFD simulation, establishing grid size towards independent occurs at the nozzle entrance due to high velocity at the centre. The
nature of the solution is an essential first step. In this regard, an sectional top view of velocity distribution around SES is depicted
attempt is made to determine the optimum mesh for the present in Fig. 6(c). Symmetric eddies are formed in between the extended
numerical simulations. Different mesh sizes employed for the grid surfaces due to flow obstruction, which is similar to flow across
sensitivity study are shown in Table 1 along with maximum tile and bluff bodies. Flow by-pass occurs through the gap between the wall
thimble temperature. It can be noticed that the difference between of the extended surfaces and the channel wall which is clearly seen
temperature distributions of tiles and thimbles obtained from mesh from the figure. Formations of eddies leads to increase in turbulence
M3 and M4 are small. The percentage of deviation in temperature activity and hence increases the rate of heat transfer.
among M3 and M4 are 0.12% and 0.09%, respectively. Though the Temperature distributions for without and with SES are shows
change is a small but computational effort is significantly higher in Fig. 7. It is observed that the temperature of tile and thimble are
for M4 as compared to M3 thus justifying the use of mesh M3 for reduced for SES as compared to without extended surface. It is due
further investigations. to enhance the rate of heat transport by SES as a result of increasing
in surface area.
3.2. Parametric studies The total surface heat flux across the supporting plate and SES
for the above cases is depicted in Fig. 8. It is seen that the inclusion of
Systematic studies for various mass flow rates with different
heat flux have been performed using mesh M3. This particular grid
is chosen after performing a detailed grid sensitivity study as dis-
cussed in Section 3.1. The outcomes of the parametric studies are
depicted in Fig. 4(a) and (b). It has been observed that tile, thim-
ble and helium temperature difference continuously increases with
heat fluxes whereas the pressure drop remains almost constant as
expected. Temperature distributions across tile, thimble and the
helium temperature difference of the present simulation at vary-
ing heat fluxes is in good agreement with the reported results [2].
Analysis has been performed for nominal mass flow rate and is val-
idated against the reported result. The temperature distributions
in the solid and fluid regions are presented in Fig. 5. The maximum
tile temperature occurs at the outer corner of the surface, and the
maximum thimble temperature is noticed just above the central jet.

4. Results and Discussions

4.1. Comparative studies for flow & heat transfer analysis

Comparative analysis for without and with SES have been car-
ried out and presented for mass flow rate of 5 g/s with heat flux Fig. 8. Total heat flux (W/m2 ) at solid-fluid interface (a) without SES and (b) with
value of 10 MW/m2 . Flow and heat transfer features are described SES.
 S. Rimza et al. / Fusion Engineering and Design 89 (2014) 2647–2658 2653

Fig. 9. Maximum temperature as function of mass flow rate at different heat loads Fig. 10. Effect of Reynolds number on (a) heat transfer coefficient and (b) pressure
(a) tile and (b) thimble. drop at different heat loads.

extended surface increases heat flux distribution and heat transfer

rate as compared to without extended surface as more surface area be corrected for the non homogeneous temperatures above the SES
available for fluid to interact with the solid. by average fin efficiency () as:
 
heff Ac = hact Ap + Ae  (4.2.2)
4.2. Extraction of thermal parameters
where ‘hact ’ actual heat transfer coefficient. For the finger mock-
The effective heat transfer coefficient (heff ) for the case without
up without SES, hact = heff . Assuming no gap between inner steel
SES is determined based on the temperature difference between
cartridge and extended surfaces, an adiabatic boundary condition
the cooled surface wall and the bulk fluid as:
was assumed over the tip of the extended surfaces to determine ‘’
q A [19] from:
heff = (4.2.1)
(Tc − Tb ) Ac 
where q
represents an upper bound of average heat flux incident hact P
 = tanh ml/ml where m = (4.2.3)
on the cooled surface. In order to determine heff , with SES, it must Ke Ace
2654 S. Rimza et al. / Fusion Engineering and Design 89 (2014) 2647–2658

Fig. 12. Comparisons of (a) effective wall heat transfer coefficient and (b) pressure
Fig. 11. (a) Comparisons of tiles and (b) thimble maximum temperature for with
drop for with and without SES at optimized heat loads.
and without SES at different heat loads.

Effectiveness () of the extended surface is defined as the ratio of 4.3. Assessment of performance for flow parameters (without
heat transfer rate by SES to the without extended surface is written SES)
as:
Ae ×  The prime motive of this investigation is to find optimum mass
= (4.2.4) flow rate at an acceptable pressure drop for cooling of finger
Ac
mock-up. Towards this, numerical studies have been performed
The corresponding pumping power (W) was then determined without considering SES at different heat fluxes value, viz., 8, 10
by: and 12 MW/m2 over a wide range of mass flow rates (5–20 g/s).
Temperature distributions on the surface of tile and thimble for
ṁ × pHe
WHe = (4.2.5) various mass flow rates for given heat loads are depicted Fig. 9(a)
He
and (b), respectively.
where the symbols have their usual meanings and are described in Fig. 9 shows that, tile and thimble brazing temperature are
the nomenclature. within design limits for lower heat flux value of 8 MW/m2
 S. Rimza et al. / Fusion Engineering and Design 89 (2014) 2647–2658 2655

Fig. 14. Comparison of pumping power with and without SES as function of mass
flow rate.

4.4. Performance analysis with extended surfaces

Thermal-hydraulics performance of finger mock-up has been

analyzed to find the effectiveness of SES at specified heat load con-
ditions describe in Section. 4.3. Four cases (Flow with & without
SES) are analyzed with two heat flux, viz., 8 and 10 MW/m2 . Coolant
mass flow rate is varied from 5 to 20 g/s. Maximum temperature
values on tiles and thimble without, and with SES at different mass
flow rates are depicted in Fig. 11. It is observed that, tiles and thim-
ble temperature reduces with an increase in flows rate. The temper-
ature values along the tiles and thimble with SES are significantly
lower than that without SES. With the presence of SES, lesser mass
flow rates (5 g/s for heat flux of 8 MW/m2 and 7.3 g/s for 10 MW/m2 )
are adequate to keep thimble temperature within the desire limits.
Fig. 12 represents the variation of effective heat transfer coeffi-
cient (heff ) and pressure drop for without and with SES at different

Fig. 13. (a) Comparison of efficiency () and (b) effectiveness () with SES.

with mass flow rate of ∼10 g/s, whereas for higher heat flux
(10–12 MW/m2 ), flow rate in the range of 14–19 g/s is required to
keep thimble temperature within the design limits (1050 ◦ C). From
the above figure, it implies that without SES, cooling finger will
require very high mass flow rate and hence pumping power will
be high to maintain the desired constraint. Fig. 10(a) and (b) rep-
resents heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop as a function
of Reynolds number (Re). With increasing Re, both heff and pHe
increases, however there is no appreciable effect observed with
variation in heat flux due to the temperature variation of cooled Fig. 15. Comparison of mass flow rate without and with SES for different heat flux
wall surface. values.
2656 S. Rimza et al. / Fusion Engineering and Design 89 (2014) 2647–2658
Fig. 16. Comparison of pumping power (a) without SES and (b) with SES as a function
of heat flux.
Re. It is notice that ‘heff ’ for both the cases increase with the rise in
Re, but the increase is much faster with the presence of SES. This is
due to increasing in surface area that enhances turbulence in flow
and hence improves the effective heat transfer coefficient. Simi-
larly, the values of pressure drop increase in the presence o f SES as
compared to that without extended surfaces as seen from Fig. 12(b)
as expected.
Variation in efficiency () and effectiveness () with mass flows
rate are depicted in Fig. 13. It is seen that both  and  are maximum
at lower mass flow rate, and they start decreasing continuously
mass flow further increases. This particular behaviour expected as
both these factors inherently depend on hact . From the above com-
parison, it is implied that extended surfaces potentially enhance
the thermal performance of the finger mock-up.
Fig. 17. Comparison of effective wall heat transfer coefficient for without and with
SES as a function of pumping power.
4.5. Design analysis of divertor finger mock-up
The dependence of pumping power on the proposed design of
finger mock-up has been investigated for various mass flow rates
and is presented in Fig. 14. It is seen that, the pumping power con-
tinuously increases with mass flow rate for a constant heat flux
10 MW/m2 ). Dashed line marks the design limit on pumping power.
From the figure, clearly the mass flow rate should not exceed 10 g/s
for the finger mock up without SES, which contradicts our earlier
statements (Fig. 9b, Section 4.3). So the reference design is unable
to tolerate 10 MW/m2 unless extended surface is added to it. It is
also seen that, with the addition SES, even a lower mass flow rate
∼7.3 g/s is adequate to maintain the desired pumping power and
thimble temperature limit for the above heat load.
The maximum heat flux to be accommodated by finger mock-
up at allowable tile/thimble filler temperature constraint has been
estimated as:
 (Tc − Ti )
q =     (4.5.1)
A/heff Ac + t/K
where t and K denote the thickness and thermal conductivity of the
thimble, respectively. Fig. 15 depicts the variation of heat flux with
mass flow rate for the cases with and without SES at 10 MW/m2 . It
is observed that prototypical flow rates conditions for fusion power
plant (∼7.3 g/s) with SES can accommodate a heat flux of 10 MW/m2
whereas it is only ∼4.5 MW/m2 without SES. In order to accommo-
date high heat flux exceeding 10 MW/m2 with the present design,
melting limits of the tile/thimble brazing filler material should be
increased.
Parametric studies on pumping power without and with SES are
analyzed for two different pumping power limits, viz., 10–15% of
the total power removed from the tile and thimble. The correspond-
ing results are depicted in Fig. 16. It is observed that with extended
surface, finger mock-up can tolerate up to a maximum heat load of
10–11.2 MW/m2 at the expense of pumping powers 10% and 15%
of the incident power. However, without the extended surfaces, it
can abide by a highest load of only 5 MW/m2 .
Fig. 17 compare the effective heat transfer coefficient obtained
for heat flux 10 MW/m2 with pumping power for with and with-
out extended surface. From the figure, it is found that at identical
 S. Rimza et al. / Fusion Engineering and Design 89 (2014) 2647–2658
Fig. 18. 30◦ sector cooling finger mock-up (a) temperature distribution (b) Von-Mises stress distribution.
required pumping power, the mock-up with extended surface offer
a higher heat transfer coefficient and thereby higher heat trans-
fer enhancement. From all these parametric studies, it is evident
that the use of extended surface in the finger mock up significantly
increase the thermal performance associated with low additional
pressure drop. To respect pumping power and thimble tempera-
ture limit, low mass flow rates (∼7.3 g/s) is adequate for the present
design. It can also accommodate higher heat flux, if melting tem-
perature limit of the tile and thimble brazing filler material further
increased.
5. Thermo-Mechanical Analysis
In order to verify the practicability of design, thermo-
mechanical investigations are carried out using finite element
based tools [1]. Towards this, nodal temperatures and pressure
obtained from the CFD optimization studies are imported to the
FEM software for structural analysis. For the entire solid domain,
temperature dependent material properties [18] are considered,
and frictionless boundary condition is considered at the bottom.
Fig. 18 represented temperature distribution around the extended
surface as well as the Von-Mises stress for the optimized geom-
etry. Fig. 18(a) illustrate the maximum temperature occur at top
of the mock up and also the temperature distribution around the
extended surface is non homogeneous. It is seen that the maxi-
mum stress develops at the tile-thimble interface. However, the
stresses developed in present design are within the permissible
limit (Fig. 18b).
6. Conclusions
The fluid flow and heat transfer characteristics of divertor
cooling finger mock-up are investigated through jet impinging
technique with sectorial extended surfaces (SES). The main objec-
tive of the present study is to numerically evaluate how addition
of SES affects the thermal hydraulics performance of finger type
divertor. Towards this, systematic studies by modelling of one such
cooling finger have been carried out. As a first precursor, grid sen-
sitivity analyses have been performed through a 30◦ sector model,
2657
and the optimized grid has been arrived. In the second stage, flow
and heat transfer features have been investigated and are com-
pared with the published experimental and computational data.
The calculated and measured values of the tile and thimble sur-
face temperatures show good agreement with the reported results.
Numerical investigations showed that addition of SES greatly
increases thermal-hydraulic performance of the finger mock-up.
Performance analysis indicates that present mock-up design should
be acceptable for mass flow rate less than 7.3 g/s (Rejet ∼ 1,11,000)
to ensure desired pumping power and thimble temperature limits.
Adding the array of extended surface, double the maximum heat
flux that can accommodated by the finger mock-up. This design
can also accommodate high heat flux, if melting temperature limit
of the tile and thimble brazing temperature are increased further.
Thermo-mechanical analysis has been carried out for the finger
mock-up through finite element based approach. It is seen that,
all the stresses are within the permissible limit.
References
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2011.
[2] B. Končar, P. Norajitra, K. Oblak, Effect of nozzle sizes on jet impingement heat
transfer in He-cooled divertor, Appl. Therm. Eng. 30 (2010) 697–705.
[3] A.R. Raffray, S. Malang, X. Wang, Optimizing the overall configuration of
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et al., Recent US activities on advanced he-cooled w-alloy divertor concepts for
fusion power plants, Fusion Eng. Des. 86 (2011) 71–98.
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[11] F. Arbeiter, S. Gordeev, V. Heinzel, V. Slobodtchouk, Analysis of turbulence
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[13] M.D. Hageman, D.L. Sadowski, M. Yoda, S.I. Abdel-Khalik, Experimental stud-
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[14] V. Widak, P. Norajitra, Optimization of He-cooled divertor cooling fingers using [19]
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[15] I. Ovchinnikov, R. Giniyatulin, T. Ihli, G. Janeschitz, A. Komarov, R. Kruessmann,
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  Studies on divertor cooling finger of helium mock-up through CFD approach
NUCLEUS by Rimza, S.; Satpathy, K.; Khirwadkar, S.S. (Divertor and First wall Technology
Division, Institute for Plasma Research, Gandhinagar (India)); Velusamy, K.
(Mechanics and Hydraulics Division, Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic
INSPIRE-HEP Research, Kalpakkam (India)), E-mail: sandeepr@ipr.res.in, E-mail:
satpathy@ipr.res.in, E-mail: sameer@ipr.res.in, E-mail: kvelu@igcar.gov.in
About INIS from
Proceedings of the international workshop on new horizons in nuclear reactor thermal
Repository hydraulics and safety

[en] The use of impinging jets for divertor cooling in the conceptual design of fusion power plant is
attracting much attention due to its high heat removal capability and moderate pumping power. The
I N I S R epository   latest advanced divertor concept is based on modular design cooled by helium impinging jets. To reduce
contains the thermal stresses, the plasma-facing side of the divertor is build up of numerous small cooling fingers
374,000   cooled by an array of helium jets. In this study, a systematic approach towards modeling of one such
cooling finger is numerically investigated. The reference geometry for this simulation is in accordance
full texts and
with Končar et al. The simulation results for the reference finger geometry are validated against high
3,900,000 heat flux experiments and a good agreement is noticed between the present simulation and the reported
bibliographic records Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) result. (author)

Primary Subject GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS (S22)  
Source Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai (India); Nuclear Power Corporation of
Updates India Ltd., Mumbai (India); 91 p; 2014; [6 p.]; IW-NRTHS 2014: international
 

workshop on new horizons in nuclear reactor thermal hydraulics and safety; Mumbai
(India); 13-15 Jan 2014; 7 refs., 6 figs., 4 tabs.
In 2016   Record Type Book  
more than  Country/Organization
India  
Descriptors (DEI) COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION, DESIGN, FLUID MECHANICS, HEAT FLUX, NUCLEAR  
30,000
POWER PLANTS
bibliographic records and
Descriptors (DEC) MECHANICS, NUCLEAR FACILITIES, POWER PLANTS, SIMULATION, THERMAL POWER
2,300    PLANTS  
full texts have been added Language English  
Reference Number 45080320  
Related Record 45080223  
Publication Year 2014  
INIS Newsletter INIS Volume 45  
INIS Issue 34

Copyright © 2010-2016 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). All rights reserved. v5.1.0.20160223