Learning Forum

[Nicolas Lefevre]

Hi all,

A new trend in fusion reactor is to have liquid metal over the vessel, in order to evacuate high thermal energy. During operation, the whole vessel is at a high vacuum value (around 10E-5 Pa ...).

In order to simulate the fluid (it will stay as a fluid / it is not the actual question), one possibility is to simulate also the vacuum as a gas, with a decreasing pressure, until the analysis becomes unstable.

Nevertheless, does anybody know if another type of simulation could be more suitable (even SPH maybe) ?

 

Thanks in advance,

 

BR

[Rob]

What do you want to get out of the model? There are several multiphase approaches in Fluent, plus SPH in Rocky and Dyna. Vacuum isn't a good idea, but you can reduce the gas density & viscosity. 

[Nicolas Lefevre]

Well, the idea is to see how the vacuum impact fluid behavior (as in my case, the fluid should be projected at the inside top of a circular shaped section, and then evacuated at the bottom inner zone (thus, creating a fluid layer on a rounded shape). We feel like this very low pressure in the chamber will modify the interface behavior with the fluid, leading to a modification of operating conditions (like velocity, temperature, ...)

 

Thx

[Rob]

OK. As you include the surface tension in the set-up you may find just altering that to reflect the phase pairing to be sufficient. If you then want to track the interface VOF is probably the best choice, but check the model limitations. VOF to DPM may also be of interest. 

[Nicolas Lefevre]

OK thanks, I will have a look on that. Thanks!