Heat and Mass Transfer in a Capillary Porous Structure Infiltrated with Liquid Metal

This work aims to investigate heat and mass transfer in a capillary porous structure (CPS) infiltrated with liquid metal, intended for use in next-generation fusion-reactor divertors. These components rely on 3D-printed porous metallic lattices infiltrated with liquid tin (Sn), with the objective of enhancing thermal management and extending the lifetime of these critical plasma-facing elements through capillary transport and self-healing mechanisms. CPS-based divertors infiltrated with liquid tin are expected to exhibit improved heat-dissipation capacity, increased durability, and reduced maintenance requirements compared with conventional solid divertors. The combination of controlled-pore-size lattices and liquid-tin infiltration offers superior thermal-management performance, enabling more uniform temperature distributions and enhancing resilience to extreme heat fluxes ranging from MW to GW/m2. The complex heat- and mass-transfer phenomena within the liquid-tin-infiltrated porous lattice are modeled using a direct numerical simulation approach. This is based on the coupling between the phase-field model and heat transfer in porous structures, taking into account the evaporation effect. Experimentally, the capillary rise of liquid in the CPS, coupled with liquid evaporation, is investigated using MRI techniques. These experiments provide deeper insight into mass-transfer mechanisms within the CPS and support the validation of the numerical model.

Work In Progress