Heat Transport Augmentation Using Vibration Material Excited by Boiling Bubbles for Heat Removal from Divertor

Efficient heat transport and energy conversion are key factors for realizing a commercial fusion reactor. A promising method for enhancing heat transport performance and simplifying the transport system is thermosiphon. However, the maximum heat flux in the evaporation unit [namely, boiling heat transfer (BHT)] of the thermosiphon system should be improved to remove heat at high heat fluxes (>10 MW/m²). To improve BHT, we propose a new technique using a vibration material excited by boiling bubbles. In this study, we investigated the characteristics of BHT with and without the vibration material with pure water at atmospheric pressure to demonstrate our concept. We demonstrated that the vibration material enhances BHT when the vibration is synchronized with the frequency of boiling bubbles emitted from the heating surface.