IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON APPLIED SUPERCONDUCTIVITY, VOL. 24, NO.

3, JUNE 2014 4202405

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Analysis of

the Helium Inlet Mock-Up for the ITER TF
Superconducting Magnets
Roberto Zanino, Senior Member, IEEE, Christelle Boyer, Arnaud Foussat, Kazuya Hamada, Marco Nenni,
Vincenzo Santoro, Kazutaka Seo, and Laura Savoldi Richard, Member, IEEE

AbstractThe final design for the inlets of the supercritical He

(SHe) coolant of the toroidal field (TF) superconducting magnets
of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER)
has to be evaluated on the basis of different aspects, including the
interest to minimize the associated localized pressure drop. Based
on previous experience made on the analysis of the SHe inlets for
the ITER superconducting central solenoid, we have developed
and applied a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model to com-
pute the pressure drop versus mass flow rate characteristic in the
TF inlet mock-up which was recently tested at CEA Cadarache,
France. The cable model is first calibrated and verified against
experimental data from short straight samples. The calibrated Fig. 1. (Left) Sketch of TF inlet. (Right) Location of TF inlets.
model is then applied to the inlet geometry and the results of the
calculation are compared with the available measurements, show-
ing very good agreement for sufficiently anisotropic permeability
of the cable region. The thus validated model is finally used to
investigate the distribution of the coolant flow among the different
petals and the central channel, downstream of the inlet, as well
as to quantitatively assess the role of the petal wrapping on the
localized pressure drop at the inlet.
Index TermsComputational fluid dynamics (CFD), interna-
tional thermonuclear experimental reactor (ITER), nuclear fu-
sion, superconducting magnets.

I. I NTRODUCTION

T HE INLETS of the supercritical He (SHe) coolant of

the toroidal field (TF) superconducting magnets of the
International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) are
located in the high magnetic field region of the innermost
turns of the winding double pancakes, at the bottom conductor
transition areas, see Fig. 1.
The final design of the inlets has to be evaluated on the Fig. 2. (a) Schematic view of the coolant access to the perforations in the
basis of different aspects, including the interest to minimize two grids through the grooves in the TF inlet sleeve. (b) Cross section of the
the associated localized pressure drop, not exceeding that of a cable and of the inlet sleeve with details of the insertion of the perforated grids
(in red).
characteristic CICC length of 10 m.

Manuscript received July 17, 2013; accepted October 2, 2013. Date of

For that purpose, an experimental database has been recently
publication October 18, 2013; date of current version December 23, 2013. This collected: at CEA Cadarache, France, a set of tests was per-
work was supported by ITER IO under Contract ITER/CT/12/4300000554. The formed using nitrogen gas at room temperature, on the He
views and opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of the
ITER Organization.
inlet mock-up shown in Fig. 2 [1], while at CERN Geneva,
R. Zanino, M. Nenni, V. Santoro, and L. Savoldi Richard are with Dipar- Switzerland, other measurements were performed using dem-
timento Energia, Politecnico di Torino, 10129 Torino, Italy (e-mail: roberto. ineralised water on several inlet geometries [2] (in both cases,
zanino@polito.it).
C. Boyer, A. Foussat, K. Hamada, and K. Seo are with International Ther- also the straight short conductor sample was characterized from
monuclear Experimental Reactor Organization (ITER IO), 13108 Cadarache, the hydraulic point of view). Data measured on full-length TF
France. conductors at JAEA Naka, Japan, using pressurized nitrogen
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. gas [3] are also available and relevant, although not directly
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TASC.2013.2286180 related to the inlet geometry.
1051-8223 2013 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
4202405
Fig. 3. Side grid in the TF He inlet mock-up tested at CEA. The inlet pipe
carrying the coolant flow directly to the other grid is also visible.
In this paper, building on previous experience made on
the analysis of the He inlets for the ITER superconducting
central solenoid [4], we develop and apply a computational fluid
dynamics (CFD) model to compute the pressure drop versus
mass flow rate characteristic in the TF inlet mock-up recently
tested at CEA Cadarache, France.
The results of the calculation will be validated against
the available measurements. The thus validated computational
model will be finally used to compute the distribution of the
coolant flow among the different petals, which was not mea-
sured, as well as the sensitivity of the localized pressure drop at
the inlet to the presence of the petal wrapping.
II. TF H ELIUM I NLET D ESIGN G EOMETRY
The TF cable is made of six petals twisted with a pitch of
420 mm around the central channel spiral (8 mm/10 mm
ID/OD, 6 mm width, 33% open fraction). Each petal is partly
covered by a helical wrapping (0.1 mm thickness, 13.5 mm
width, 50% open fraction). With respect to the petal helices,
both the central channel spiral and the wrappings are wound in
the opposite direction.
The inlet sleeve is applied after suitably cutting away two
parts of the jacket, and substituting them with two perforated
grids, see Fig. 2.
While in the actual ITER TF inlet, the cable wrapping will
be removed from the grid regions, it was left in place in the TF
inlet mock-up analyzed in this paper, see Fig. 3.
III. 3D CFD M ODEL
The tool adopted for our simulations is the open-source
OpenFoam code [5]. The same tool was already used in its
commercial version for the analysis of the ITER CS helium
inlets [4], proving to be able to compute the flow in that
complex geometry, including for the first time essential details
like the petal wrapping and the twist of the petals around the
central channel. Another interesting feature of this tool is that
it can be easily parallelized, both in the pre-processing/mesh
generation phase and in the solution phase, giving a dramatic
and in this case essential reduction of the needed CPU time.
The Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes equations are solved
by OpenFoam. For the bundle region, the porous medium model
is selected [6], since the direct CFD simulation of the flow
among the single strands has not progressed so far beyond the
simplest case of a single triplet [7]. For the central channel,
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON APPLIED SUPERCONDUCTIVITY, VOL. 24, NO. 3, JUNE 2014
Fig. 4. Two limiting situations considered in this paper for the direct passage
of the coolant from the inlet pipe (white circle) to the cable: unobstructed
Case A (top); largely plugged by the petal wrappingCase B (bottom).
Dark blue = wrapping; light colors = petals.
previous work showed that the two-layer k model was
very good at reproducing the hydraulic characteristic [8], but
that model is not available in OpenFoam; therefore, we chose
here the k RNG turbulence closure as an alternative, which
is known to be also suitable in cases of flow detachment/
reattachment, as typical of the central channel flow close to the
spiral.
All simulations are performed imposing a given mass flow
rate at the inlet, and a given reference pressure (0 Pa gauge) at
the outlet.
IV. M ODEL G EOMETRY AND M ESH G ENERATION
A. Cable
In the cable model, the azimuthal position of the petals
(phase of the cable) is chosen randomly at one end of the
conductor, as well as the phase of the wrappings with respect to
the petals. The cable is finally inserted in the jacket to obtain
the CICC.
The axial length of the computational domain needed for the
inlet simulations is Ldomain = 2 600 mm (centered around
the inlet pipe axis). This was checked a posteriori, see below,
to be sufficient for the full development of the flow in the CICC.
B. Inlet Region
Since the actual position of the cable below the inlet pipe is
unknown, the parametric analysis of two geometries as shown
in Fig. 4 was considered. The direct He passage from the inlet
pipe to the cable through the big rectangular hole is
unobstructed, in Case A;
largely plugged by the wrapping of one petal, in Case B.
A few centimeters of the inlet pipe are also modeled.
The strategy followed to mesh the fluid domain has already
been described in [4]. For the purpose of demonstrating the
mesh independence of the computed solution, different succes-
sively refined meshes have been developed. The main features
of the different meshes for the TF conductor (i. e., without the
inlet) are reported in Table I and shown in Fig. 5. The meshes
for the inlet have then been developed, starting from Mesh 1
ZANINO et al.: CFD ANALYSIS OF HELIUM INLET MOCK-UP FOR ITER TF SUPERCONDUCTING MAGNETS
TABLE I
N UMBER OF C ELLS (/106 ) IN THE D IFFERENT M ESHES B UILT FOR THE
TF S TRAIGHT C ONDUCTORa
Fig. 5. Cross section of the different meshes used in the present analysis for
the region away from the inlet; (a) Mesh 1; (b), Mesh 2; (c) Mesh 3.
Fig. 6. Longitudinal and transverse cut along the conductor inlet region,
showing the main features of the mesh (Mesh 1) of the fluid domain. Yellow =
cable/porous medium; red = central channel; green = inlet.
and 2 in Fig. 5, separately for case A and B above. An example
of inlet mesh, obtained starting from Mesh 1, is shown in Fig. 6.
V. C ALIBRATION AND V ERIFICATION OF THE M ODEL
The computational model has to be first calibrated (to assess
the suitable value of bundle region permeability) and then
verified against measured pressure drop data for the same CICC
(but without inlet), before applying it to the inlet problem.
This can be done, thanks to availability of different sets of
experimental data.
A. Calibration of the Bundle Region Permeability
The hydraulic characteristic of the bundle region of a short
straight TF conductor sample was measured at CERN using
pressurized water [2] and keeping the central channel plugged.
The parabolic fit of the experimental data (average pressure
gradient versus mass flow rate) can be used to derive the values
of the permeability K (assumed isotropic at this stage) and of
the inertia constant J, using the following relation:
p J
= m m2 . (1)
L KA KA2
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Fig. 7. Hydraulic characterization of a straight short sample of TF conductor
with blocked central channel: Experimental data [2] (circles), parabolic best fit
(dashed), and results of OpenFoam simulations (squares) using K and J from
the best fit.
In (1), p/L is the average pressure gradient along the cable,
is the density (here 997 kg/m3 ), is the viscosity (here 854
106 Pa/s), A is the total flow area of the bundle (1130.66 mm2 )
and m is the mass flow rate. Comparing the coefficients in (1)
to the parabolic fit reported in Fig. 7, we get for the cable
K = 1.162 109 m2 and J = 4.106 102 . These values
are well in the ballpark of the K and J values of previously
analyzed CICC [10]. The accuracy of this calibration has also
been successfully cross-checked by OpenFoam simulations
performed on 1.2 m of conductor, using these K and J and
water as a fluid, see Fig. 7.
B. Verification of the Hydraulic Characteristic of the CICC
The capability of the computational model to compute the
pressure drop on the whole CICC (bundle region + central
channel) has been verified comparing the computed results to
the experimental characteristic of the conductor, measured
1) at CERN, using pressurized water [2], and
2) at JAEA [3] and CEA [9], using pressurized nitrogen gas.
Since the available measured data have been obtained using
different fluids, but the conductor geometry is exactly the
same for all the experimental data, we can consider a pseudo-
dimensionless analysis in terms of the dimensional variables
f (m5 ) and Re (m) defined as follows:
p
f = (2)
L m2
m
Re = . (3)
The collection of the available experimental data in pseudo-
dimensionless form is reported in Fig. 8. The data from [2]
and [3] cover a range of relatively low Re , which is not fully
representative of the nominal flow conditions in the ITER TF
coils, expected to operate at Re 2100 m, which is well
covered, however, by the data from [9]. The error bar for the
data set in [9] is not negligible, while the error bar for the other
two data sets [2] and [3] is unfortunately unknown.
The simulations have been performed on the different meshes
using water as a fluid and under two different assumptions:
i) isotropic porous medium;
4202405
Fig. 8. Pseudo-dimensionless characteristic for the pressure gradient along
the conductor. Results computed using Mesh 1 (squares), Mesh 2 (triangles),
and Mesh 3 (circles), considering the porous medium as isotropic (solid
symbols) and anisotropic (open symbols). Also, the experimental data from
[9], with the respective error bar (pale green region), and [2] are reported. The
fit from [3] (solid line) and that deduced for data from [2] (dashed line) are also
reported to guide the eye.
ii) anisotropic porous medium, where the transverse perme-
ability has been reduced with respect to the longitudinal
one by an arbitrarily chosen factor of 100, in the absence
of measured data (this qualitatively obvious feature of
the CICC bundle region will turn out below to be impor-
tant in the case of the inlet, although not critical in the
straight conductor characterization strictly speaking, see
also [10]).
The results of the OpenFoam simulations are also reported
in Fig. 8, showing a good agreement, within the experimental
error bars where available, both with the isotropic and with the
anisotropic assumption. This is not surprising because in the
case of the straight CICC (no inlet) the flow is mainly longitu-
dinal. Note that the assumption of lower transverse permeability
leads to a slightly higher f (i.e., pressure drop) along the
conductor, due to the perturbation of the local pressure field at
the interface between bundle region and central channel, where
the flow is free to pass from one region to the other, see also
[6]. It is clear that Mesh 2 is sufficient to obtain reasonably
mesh-independent results, so that in the case of the inlet we
shall concentrate on the results obtained on this mesh.
VI. M ODEL VALIDATION AGAINST TF I NLET
M OCK -U P DATA
The TF helium inlet mock-up recently tested at CEA [1], see
Fig. 3, was very close to the final design for ITER, except for
non removal of the petal wrapping under the inlet, and for a
slightly different slot geometry and distribution of the holes.
The pressure drop on the first 0.5 m of conductor (on the left
and on the right of the inlet, where the pressure taps are located)
is computed as a function of the mass flow rate in Case A and
Case B, see Fig. 4.
The simulations have been performed using both water and
SHe, and the results are interpreted in terms of the pseudo-
dimensionless localized pressure drop
z = p
m2
as a function of Re .
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON APPLIED SUPERCONDUCTIVITY, VOL. 24, NO. 3, JUNE 2014
Fig. 9. Pseudo-dimensionless characteristic for the localized pressure drop
across the inlet. Computed results with isotropic porous medium assumption
for the cable bundle region on Mesh 2 (dash-dotted line) for Case A and Case B
(open circles and open triangles), respectively. Also, the experimental data
(solid circles) with their error bar (pale green region) are reported.
Fig. 10. Pseudo-dimensionless characteristic for the localized pressure drop
across the inlet. Computed results with anisotropic porous medium assumption
for the cable bundle region on Mesh 2 (dash-dotted line) for Case A and Case B
(open circles and open triangles), respectively. Also, the experimental data
(solid circles) with their error bar (pale green region) are reported.
The results of the simulations, reported in Figs. 9 and 10
for the isotropic and anisotropic cable bundle assumption,
respectively, are compared with the available experimental data,
measured using pressurized nitrogen [9]. While the isotropic
assumption leads to an underestimation of the measured data
independently of the mesh used, the results computed assuming
an anisotropic porous medium are well in the ballpark of the
measurements, the more so in Case B. The larger influence
of the anisotropy of the bundle region in the case of the inlet,
compared to the case of the straight CICC, is obviously related
to the fact that in the case of the inlet the whole flow feeding the
two neighboring pancakes has to first travel in the transverse
direction. In Case B, z is about 30% larger than in Case A,
confirming the non-negligible role of the wrapping in the local
pressure drop across the inlet.
The computed coolant flow field is reported in Fig. 11(a) and
(b) for Case A and Case B, respectively, and isotropic cable
bundle region.
In Case A, a larger fraction of the flow enters the conductor
directly through the grid below the inlet pipe, with a relatively
low local pressure drop, while in Case B the petal wrapping
closing the big hole in the grid below the inlet pipe forces
a larger flow through the other grid and leads to a higher
local pressure drop. For the similar reason, the effect of the
(4) anisotropy is most significant in Case A, and the difference in
pressure drop between Case A and B is larger in the isotropic
case, see Table II.
ZANINO et al.: CFD ANALYSIS OF HELIUM INLET MOCK-UP FOR ITER TF SUPERCONDUCTING MAGNETS
Fig. 11. Computed flow field development (arrows only indicative of flow
direction), colored by magnitude of the coolant speed (m/s), in the planes
orthogonal to the two grids. Isotropic porous medium.
TABLE II
S UMMARY OF R ESULTS FOR TF I NLET M OCK -U P ON M ESH 2#
Fig. 12. Distribution of the mass flow rate (positive if directed to the right for
x > 0, if directed to the left for x < 0) below the inlet and along the conductor:
central channel (dashed line), different petals (solid lines of different colors,
color code explained in the sketch on top). Anisotropic porous medium.
The computed distribution along the conductor of the flow
repartition on the CICC cross section is reported in Fig. 12:
the homogenization length among the petals results to be
200300 mm. The flow repartition between bundle region (B)
and central channel (H), reaches after 400500 mm from the
inlet the asymptotic value of 48% (B) and 52% (H). The two
geometries considered here for the inlet/cable interface (Case A
4202405
and Case B) do not affect the global features of the repartition
in Fig. 12(a) and (b). Of course the details, e.g., the petals where
the peaks appear, are affected in a way which directly depends
on the interface geometry, see Fig. 12 top.
VII. C ONCLUSION AND P ERSPECTIVE
A CFD model for the analysis of the tests results of the ITER
TF inlet mock-up has been developed, calibrated and verified
using experimental data from CICC without transverse inlet.
The calibrated model has been validated showing very
good agreement (within the error bars) against experimental
data from a transverse inlet test, provided a non-negligible
anisotropy is assumed for the permeability of the cable bundle
region. The computed results are sensitive to the phase of the
cable inside the jacket, because this determines the level of
plugging of the holes in the inlet grids.
The simulations show that the flow distribution among the
petals becomes homogeneous 200300 mm from the inlet,
while the flow repartition between cable region and central
channel requires 400500 mm to stabilize.
The model is now being applied to predict the thermal-
hydraulic performance of the actual ITER TF He inlets.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We should like to gratefully acknowledge the compu-
tational resources provided by HPC@POLITO, a project
of Academic Computing within the Department of Con-
trol and Computer Engineering at the Politecnico di Torino
(http://www.hpc.polito.it), and by JuRoPA-Jlich Research on
Petaflop Architectures/HPC-FF-High Performance Comput-
ing for Fusion (http://www.fz-juelich.de/ias/jsc/EN/Expertise/
Super-computers\/JUROPA/JUROPA_node.html).
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