Thermal Effects on Dynamic Behavior of CFETR Vacuum Vessel

The vacuum vessel (VV) of the China Fusion Engineering Test Reactor (CFETR) was designed to withstand the variable structural loads resulting from dynamic excitation, such as seismic and plasma disruption. Modal analysis, a powerful tool, was used to evaluate the structural dynamic characteristics, such as frequency and mode shape. In addition, the CFETR VV has three different temperature conditions: room temperature (20°C), normal operation temperature (100°C), and baking temperature (200°C).

In this paper, in order to investigate the influence of such different temperature conditions to the dynamic behavior of the VV, three independent finite element analysis with the same modal analysis method were performed. According to analysis results, there are obvious thermal effects on the dynamic behavior, such as nature frequency and mode shape, among the different temperature cases for the CFETR VV. Moreover, the results show that the natural frequency for each order decreases as the temperature increases, and the mode shape of the VV also changed with temperature.