Abstract

The ITER reactor’s electron cyclotron heating and current drive (EC H&CD) system launcher requires an effective cooling system due to the strong thermal loads it supports. In supporting the design of this cooling system, NINE performed several numerical studies using the Ansys simulation tools to:

• calculate the distribution of the heat flux on the plasmafacing materials by computing the radiation view factors;
• conduct a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) conjugate heat transfer analysis of the launcher’s structures and cooling circuits, while accounting for thermal loads such as plasma heat radiation, microwave stray radiation, and power deposition from neutron and gamma radiation;
• estimate the pressure losses along the cooling circuits.

These analyses are part of a wider workflow carried out in a collaboration with other partners. The results of the above-mentioned simulations were then transferred to other analysts for the launcher’s structural integrity checks.