Heat transfer of TEMHD driven lithium flow in stainless steel trenches

The Lithium/Metal Infused Trenches (LiMITs) concept, which utilizes the thermoelectric magnetohydro-dynamic (TEMHD) driven flowing liquid lithium to cool the divertor surface, has been successfully demonstrated at the University of Illinois. The IR camera results show that such self-driven flowing liquid lithium in the open surface stainless steel trench structure can withstand heat fluxes of up to 10 MW/m² for 10 s without significant evaporation. A clear asymmetric temperature distribution was observed from the IR result and such asymmetry can be affected by the direction of the driven magnetic field. Thermocouples are embedded in different positions to monitor the temperature within the lithium. These direct measurements also reveal that flowing liquid lithium can effectively bring the heat from the direct heating area and the efficiency can be influenced by magnetic field and heating power.