Thermal and mechanical properties of ceramic blanket particle bed materials: Numerical derivation

In this paper, recent work on the modeling for predicting the effective the rmal and mechanical properties of the ceramic breeder blanket particle bed materials is presented. The model is based on the micromechanics displaceme nt method in conjunction with an iterative process of the successive releas ing of fixing vectors. It serves as an useful tool to study the blanket the rmomechanical state under prototypical conditions. The stress and strain re lationship of the sphere-pac bed under an applied external constraint was s tudied. In addition, the model was applied to the analysis of stress exerte d on the container wall due to bed thermal expansion, while calculations we re made to estimate the bed effective modulus and mean thermal expansion co efficient. Further development of this computer simulation model is recomme nded. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.