Heat transfer study for ITER blanket shield block cooling design

•Theoretical and numerical methods were developed to quickly evaluate the temperature for the SB design and optimization.•The methods can be used not only for the cooling design, but also to know about the heat transfer in the SB.•Comparisons of the results from numerical steady-state thermal analysis with these developed models show that the difference is quite small.

Two simplified models were developed for the cooling design of ITER shield block. Moreover, a new model, circular cylinder centered in a square solid, was also adopted to estimate the temperature, where the effects of heat transfer coefficient and volumetric heat rate were separated and studied individually. After that, the impact of dimension on the heat transfer in the new model was studied by a series of numerical analyses. At the last part, a numerical steady-state thermal analysis of a typical full shield block (SB) was performed to verify these models. Comparisons of the results from numerical analysis with these models show that the difference is acceptable in the practical application. The methods can be used not only for the cooling design, but also to know about the heat transfer in the SB.