Development of the high temperature PbLi experimental facility for CFETR

Chinese Fusion Engineering and Test Reactor (CFETR) aims to demonstrate the fusion energy production up to 200MW, and finally reach commercial electricity power level 1GW. As one key component, the blanket is in charge of tritium breeding, neutron shielding and energy conversion. The liquid breeder blanket has many important advantages of simpler structure, tritium extraction and fuel replenishment online, as well as the high thermoelectric conversion efficiency. Moreover, the supercritical carbon dioxide (S-CO2) cOoled Lithium-Lead (COOL) blanket has been proposed for CFETR. However, the key issue of MagnetoHydroDynamics (MHD) needs further investigation, especially for the experiments. Therefore, the high temperature PbLi experimental loop is under development, which mainly includes three systems of PbLi, oil and water. The main components include the mechanical pump, main heater, cold trap as well as the superconducting magnet. At the test section, the mass flow rate, temperature and magnetic intensity will be up to 32 kg/s, 700 °C and 3T, respectively. In addition, the ultrasonic doppler velocimeter and potential probe instruments will be adopted to obtain the flow field. The main goal is to establish flow and heat transfer models, which are the critical input for the liquid breeder blanket design and optimization.