The Vanadium/Lithium system has been the recent focus of ANL's Blanket Technology Program, and for the last several years, ANL's Liquid Metal Blanket activities have been carried out in direct support of the ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) breeding blanket task area. A key feasibility issue for the ITER Vanadium/Lithium breeding blanket is the development of insulator coatings. Design calculations, Hua and Gohar,1 show that an electrically insulating layer is necessary to maintain an acceptably low magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) pressure drop in the current ITER design. Consequently, the decision was made to convert Argonne's Liquid Metal Experiment (ALEX) from a 200°C NaK facility to a 350°C lithium facility. The upgraded facility was designed to produce MHD pressure drop data, test section voltage distributions, and heat transfer data for mid-scale test sections and blanket mockups at Hartmann numbers (M) and interaction parameters (N) in the range of 103 to 105 in lithium at 350°C.

Following completion of the upgrade work, a short performance test was conducted, followed by two longer, multiple-hour, MHD tests, all at 230°C. The modified ALEX facility performed up to expectations in the testing. MHD pressure drop and test section voltage distributions were collected at Hartmann numbers of 1000.