Study of Effective Solid-to-Solid Contact Thermal Resistance and its Application to Solid Breeder Blanket Design For ITER

Characterization of solid-to-solid contact thermal resistance is important for ITER solid breeder blanket designs utilizing sintered blocks of Be and/or solid breeder¹. In order to fully assess the thermal performance of such blankets, including their ability to accommodate power variation, the thermal resistances of the Be/clad and solid breeder/clad contacts need to be characterized. In this paper, factors affecting the gas and solid conductances in the contact zone are analyzed. They include: roughness, contact pressure, temperature and curvature of restrained Be block. The study is carried out based on the models of Yovanovich² and Shlykov³ and available experimental data from the literature. Recommendations are provided for the ITER solid breeder blanket design applications and for corresponding R&D requirements.