Conceptual design of a helium heater for high temperature applications

The Karlsruhe Advanced Technologies Helium Loop (KATHELO) has been designed for testing divertor modules as well as qualifying materials for high heat flux, high temperature (up to 800 °C) and high pressure (10 MPa) applications. The test section inlet temperature level is controlled using a process electrical heater. To cope with the extreme operating conditions, a special design of this unit has been proposed. In this paper the conceptual design of the unit will be presented and the impact of the coupling between the cold and hot helium gas on the overall efficiency of the loop will be investigated. The detailed thermal-hydraulic analysis of the feed through of the hot helium into the low temperature pressure vessel using ANSYS CFX will be presented. The impact of the design choices on the overall energy budget of the loop will be analyzed using RELAP5-3D.