Flow measurement in high temperature liquid metal by using electro-magnet probe

Ariyoshi, Gen  ; Obayashi, Hironari  ; Saito, Shigeru   ; Sasa, Toshinobu   

To clarify the flow characteristics of heavy liquid-metal (HLM) is important to achieve the construction of nuclear transmutation facility that utilizes HLM as a spallation target and coolant. At present, lead-bismuth eutectic (LBE) spallation target plans to be installed in Japan proton accelerator research complex (J-PARC). LBE is also selected as one of the candidate media of a spallation target and a coolant for innovative nuclear systems such as accelerator-driven system (ADS) and LBE-cooled fast reactor, due to its adequate physical/chemical properties. The characteristics of LBE flowing inside the target are usually clarified with computational fluid dynamics analysis since the measurement techniques for the HLM flow are not well established, especially for high temperature region over 450C that is delivered from ADS's criteria. Therefore, the objective of this study is to develop measurement method for flow characteristics in the high temperature LBE. A miniature electro-magnet is introduced to electro-magnetic probe to overcome the limitation caused by a curie temperature of permanent magnet. To evaluate performance of the new probe, experimental apparatus equipping annular rotating vessel were also manufactured. The new probe was applied to high temperature LBE up to 480C. As a result, proportional induced voltage to the rotation speed of LBE were clearly observed, where excitation currents of the miniature electro-magnet were 0.2 A or 1 A. In this paper, configuration and performance of the newly developed electro-magnet probe to the high temperature LBE will be presented.