[en] The aim of this work was to estimate absorbed doses received by a victim of the radiation accident with a ⁶⁰Co source in Henan province, China. With a Monte Carlo stochastic simulation method, an estimation method for doses to the radiation accident victim was made. It utilised a mathematical model of adult man and a relative applied computer program was developed. By means of the simulated conditions of the accident, the absorbed doses to the victim's main organ and total body doses were estimated. The results estimated by our Monte Carlo method are close to those of experimental simulation measurement of the accident. With its convenience and rapidity, this method will be valuable for radiation dose reconstruction for victims in radiation accidents. (author)

[en] Thermal fatigue is one of the key factors governing the lifetime of the divertor plate. Tungsten is a promising candidate to cover the surface of the divertor plate in the design of the international thermonuclear experimental reactor (ITER). The W/Cr-bronze divertor small scale mock-ups were manufactured by hot isostatic pressing (HIPing) technique. Thermal fatigue tests of W/Cr-bronze divertor mock-ups have been carried out by an electron beam facility. The mock-ups were tested under a cyclic surface heat flux of 9 MW m^-2 for 1000 cycles. The electron beam was loaded on the mock-up surface for 20 s and unloaded for 20 s, alternately. The flow rate of water coolant was 0.1 L s^-1. The 0.3 mm diameter NiCr-NiSi thermocouples were used to monitor the temperature distribution of the mock-up. It was found that the maximum temperature of the tungsten surface was about 400 degree sign C. The saturated temperature at the joint of tungsten and Cr-bronze was 160 degree sign C. The surface and the W/Cr-bronze joint of the mock-up did not show any damage during the thermal fatigue test up to 1000 cycles. A critical cooling flow rate L_c exists under a certain heat flux for a certain cooling system. The agreement between the experimental results and calculated temperature distributions was good

[en] Both solid tritium breeder blanket and liquid metal self-cooled blanket for fusion reactor are being developed in China. For liquid metal self-cooled blanket concept, it is well known that the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) effect and compatible are not only efficiency but also major feasibility issues. Some MHD-experiment studies has been done in the liquid metal experimental loop (LMEL) in China recently. In the tokamak reactor especially for engineering and experimental fusion reactor, it maybe occurred that magnetic field sudden down to zero in accident. Therefore, one must understand the procedure of the MHD pressure drop changing due to the magnetic field sudden change. But the data now available are very poor. In the experiments, the detail procedures of the MHD pressure drop and flow velocity changing due to magnetic field B=1.97T sudden down to zero were measured. The results from these measurement are presented and compared to analytical prediction value

[en] Highlights: • Modular silica gel–water adsorption chiller was designed and tested. • Single/double effect LiBr–water absorption chiller was operated and tested. • 1.n effect LiBr–water absorption chiller was proposed, designed and tested. • CaCl_2/AC–ammonia adsorption refrigerator was introduced and tested. • NH_3–H_2O absorption ice maker with better internal heat recovery was introduced. - Abstract: Solar driven air conditioning systems can cope with solar collectors working in a wide range of temperatures. Sorption systems, including absorption and adsorption refrigeration systems, are among the best choices for solar cooling. Five systems including modular silica gel–water adsorption chiller, single/double effect LiBr–water absorption chiller, 1.n effect LiBr–water absorption chiller, CaCl_2/AC (activated carbon)–ammonia adsorption refrigerator, and the water–ammonia absorption ice maker with better internal heat recovery were presented. The above five sorption chillers/refrigerators work under various driven temperatures and fulfill different refrigeration demands. The thermodynamic design and system development of the systems were shown. All these systems have improvements in comparison with existing systems and may offer good options for high efficient solar cooling in the near future.

[en] Plasma irradiation experiments of several kinds of carbon materials and molybdenum were performed in the HL-1M tokamak. The samples emerged into plasma by a depth of 1.5 cm with an angle of 45 deg. between sample surface and magnetic field. After ∼300 plasma discharges with ohmic and NBI heating, melting, microstructure of thin flakes, gas holes and bubbles were found on the surface of molybdenum. No obvious damages were found on the surface of carbon materials, only carbon fibers of 3D-C/C composite were preferentially eroded. Weight changes indicated that most of the samples had little weight loss but few of the samples had large weight increments in which some droplet-shape deposits were found on their surface. Most of the erosion and re-depositions occurred at random on the surface of samples implied that the dominant factor influenced the erosion and re-deposition of plasma facing materials was tokamak plasma disruption

[en] A liquid Metal Experimental Loop (LMEL) has been built up at Southwestern institute of Physics (SWIP), China, recently. The working fluid, ²²Na⁷⁸K (NaK), was running at near room temperature in LMEL and the flow rate of NaK was up to 230 l/min. Electromagnet offers a transverse magnetic field as high as up to 1.97 Tesla in its pole gap of 70^*17^*8cm³. The maximum Hartmann number M and interaction parameter N reached to 0.75^*10⁴ and 2.5^*10⁴, respectively. Many experiments on magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) pressure drop study have been finished at LMEL and some results are given in this paper. The experimental research for next step will focus on MHD pressure drop in test section with insulator coating and a simulation experiment research about the effect of microcracks in insulator coating on MHD pressure drop and flow velocity distribution. (author)

[en] Thermal fatigue is a key issue that the first wall material faced plasma in pulse operation reactors. A SUS304L steel was used in the experiment to study its thermal fatigue behavior using a self-designed machine. Constant amplitude temperature cycling tests with and without occasional peak temperature were performed. The results showed that the fatigue life of the steel decreased rapidly with the increase of the temperature range. Occasional peak temperature caused the fatigue life to decrease greatly. Fatigue striation and cleavage fracture were observed of the specimen fracture surface. (author)

[en] Highlights: • Absorption seasonal thermal storage cycles with multi-stage output are proposed. • Energy flows and effects of temperature parameters are analyzed. • 75.4–82.3% energy losses are reduced in the storage process. • 7.32–6.78 times higher energy storage densities are gotten for typical condition. -- Abstract: Absorption thermal storage is attractive due its small thermal loss during long term storage, which is advantageous for seasonal solar thermal storage. For the long term storage, high energy storage density is favorable to ensure a compact system. In this paper, the novel absorption seasonal thermal storage cycles with multi-stage output processes are proposed. Comparing to the conventional cycle with single stage output, larger concentration glide could be achieved by the proposed cycles under the same condition, resulting in high energy storage density. Performances of the water-LiBr absorption thermal storage cycles with double stage output and triple stage output are calculated and compared with that of the conventional single stage cycle. Energy flows, effects of temperature parameters, and working pair comparison are analyzed. For typical condition of solar thermal charging in summer and heat output in winter with output temperature of 50 °C, the proposed cycles with double stage output and triple stage output have 75.4% and 82.3% less heat losses, and achieve 7.32 times and 6.78 times higher energy storage densities than the single stage cycle. The proposed absorption thermal storage cycle with multi-stage output could be a good option for seasonal solar thermal energy storage.

[en] Several V-base alloys were exposed to hydrogen gas at 700-800 deg. C for hydrogen charging. Tensile tests were performed after the exposure to evaluate the hydrogen embrittlement behavior. The results showed that neither the uniform nor the total elongation was significantly affected by the hydrogen before a critical hydrogen concentration (C_CH) was reached when the alloys were tested at high strain rate of 1.1 x 10^-3/s. However the total elongation of the V-4Cr-4Ti alloy (NIFS-Heat 2) decreased notably with increasing hydrogen concentration at the strain rate of 4.4 x 10^-4/s. Hydrogen-induced hardening occurred for all of the alloys, which was thought to be a solid solution hardening. The hardening rate was found to decrease significantly with the addition of Ti/Al to the alloy and the increase of the strain rate. And also, the alloys with Ti or Al were shown to have better properties against the hydrogen embrittlement

[en] Highlights: • A thermally pressurized three-phase thermal energy storage cycle is proposed. • LiCl/H₂O and LiBr/H₂O working pairs are employed for evaluating the cycle. • The conventional and proposed cycles are analyzed and compared. • The required charging temperatures are lowered for summer and winter conditions. • Crystallization and dehydration processes increase the energy storage density. -- Abstract: Sorption heat storage is attractive to store solar energy for short-term cooling/heating and long-term heating. The three-phase sorption heat storage is advantageous in energy storage density, but the charging temperature to reach the crystallization is high. In order to eliminate the high charging temperature requirement for the three-phase sorption heat storage, a thermally pressurized three-phase heat storage cycle is proposed in this paper. In this cycle, the desorbed vapor from heat storage is first pressurized by the thermally driven compression sub-cycle and then condensed by the ambient. In this way, the heat storage pressure of the proposed cycle will be lower than the conventional cycle, thus decreasing the charging temperature. Performance of the proposed cycle is analyzed with working pairs of LiCl/H₂O and LiBr/H₂O. For cold storage in summer and heat storage in winter, the proposed cycle obtains storage densities of 1244 Wh/kg and 1252 Wh/kg at the charging temperatures of 75 °C and 55 °C respectively. Compared with the conventional heat storage cycle with LiCl/H₂O, the storage densities are enhanced by 2.5 and 5.9 times accordingly due to the crystallization reached under low driving temperature. This makes the proposed cycle suitable to store solar heat with non-concentrating collectors.