Flow characteristics analysis of purge gas in unitary pebble beds by CFD simulation coupled with DEM geometry model for fusion blanket

•A unitary pebble bed was built to analyze the flow characteristics of purge gas based on DEM-CFD method.•Flow characteristics between particles were clearly displayed.•Porosity distribution, velocity field distribution, pressure field distribution, pressure drop and the wall effects on velocity distribution were studied.

Helium is used as the purge gas to sweep tritium out when it flows through the lithium ceramic and beryllium pebble beds in solid breeder blanket for fusion reactor. The flow characteristics of the purge gas will dominate the tritium sweep capability and tritium recovery system design. In this paper, a computational model for the unitary pebble bed was conducted using DEM-CFD method to study the purge gas flow characteristics in the bed, which include porosity distribution between pebbles, velocity field distribution, pressure field distribution, pressure drop as well as the wall effects on velocity distribution. Pebble bed porosity and velocity distribution with great fluctuations were found in the near-wall region and detailed flow characteristics between pebbles were displayed clearly. The results show that the numerical simulation model has an error with about 11% for estimating pressure drop when compared with the Ergun equation.