Thermal-hydraulic investigations on a pilot liquid metal target

Accelerator Driven Systems (ADS) promise to play an important role in nucle ar power future due to their ability to enhance both the neutronics of reac tors as well as safety physics. The target where neutrons are generated by a proton beam is one of the most important units of such a system. To achie ve high thermal-hydraulic performance, different target concepts have been proposed in the past. One of the most favourable concepts is the so-called liquid-metal target. To master the operation technology of a liquid-metal t arget system, a pilot liquid lead-bismuth target of 1 MWth has been designe d and fabricated at the Institute of Physics and Power Engineering (IPPE) i n the framework of an ISTC project. At the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe (FZK ) theoretical investigations are being carried out on the thermal-hydraulic behaviour of the liquid lead-bismuth target. The main purpose of this inve stigation is to provide basic information for the target design, initially, from the viewpoint of optimizing the window cooling. (C) 2000 Elsevier Sci ence B.V. All rights reserved.