2020 Volume 15 Pages 1401011
An innovative concept for power and particle removal from the divertor is proposed. This scheme takes full advantage of both liquid metal convection and conduction to remove heat from the divertor, which is the most difficult issue for fusion reactor design. We propose that a liquid metal (LM) should replace the solid divertor plates on the bottom of the vacuum vessel. The LM is continuously supplied from openings located at the inner separatrix strike point on the floor of the LM container on the bottom of the vacuum vessel, and exhausted from openings located at the outer separatrix strike point on the floor of the LM container. The LM flow is guided along the field line to reduce MHD drag. In the event of a disruption, the current induced in the LM during the current quench is in the same direction of the plasma current. The induced LM current would either attract the plasma toward the LM divertor (leading to a benign Vertical Displacement Event), or force the LM toward the core plasma, providing automatic disruption mitigation, not requiring a learning process. The use of liquid tin instead of liquid lithium would provide greater stability against Rayleigh-Taylor and Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities in quiescent plasmas.
