A Comprehensive High Performance Predictive Tool for Fusion Liquid Metal Hydro-Magnetics



The critical aspects of three-dimensional magneto-hydrodynamics (MHD) flow fields in complex geometries (including conducting walls and multiple fluids in conduits,) are beyond popular engineering intuition and convenient analysis, thus requiring high fidelity numerical tools.


HIMAG (HyPerComp Incompressible MHD solver for Arbitrary Geometry) developed by HyPerComp, Inc., in collaboration with the Fusion Engineering group at the University of California at Los Angeles was to model the flow of liquid metals in nuclear fusion reactor design. These flows are characterized by very high magnetic field strength, complex geometry and fluid-solid coupling via electric current and heat. HIMAG is used to model the flow of liquid metals and other flows occurring in fusion reactors where strong interactions with the magnetic field produce numerous effects that are unique to this brand of flows.



Capabilities





Parallel iterative solver, based on well-developed base codes in CFD and CEM



2-D as well as 3-D flows can be simulated. A fully developed flow option is also present



Arbitrary mesh structure (hex/tetrahedral/prismatic cells), to resolve interfaces and complex geometry



Level Set methods for free surface capture



Implicit methods to ease stiffness and time step constraints



Choice of MHD models: φ formulation, B-formulation and A-φ formulation



Ability to include multiple solid walls of different conductivity



Modeling of axially periodic flows, fully developed flows and unsteady state flows



Multiple strategies to account for mesh skewness (no n-orthogonality)



Mass transfer, tritium transport and heat transfer



Heat transfer, natural convection, temperature dependent properties can be modeled



User-Friendly GUI



© 2019 HyPerComp, Inc. All rights reserved