LiMeS-lab: An integrated laboratory for the development of Liquid-Metal Shield technologies for fusion reactors

The liquid metal shield laboratory (LiMeS-Lab) will provide the infrastructure to develop, test, and compare liquid metal divertor designs for future fusion reactors. The main research topics of LiMeS-lab will be liquid metal interactions with the substrate material of the divertor, the continuous circulation and capillary refilling of the liquid metal during intense plasma heat loading and the retention of plasma particles in the liquid metal. To facilitate the research, four new devices are in development at the Dutch Institute for Fundamental Energy Research and the Eindhoven University of Technology: LiMeS-AM: a custom metal 3D printer based on powder bed fusion; LiMeS-Wetting, a plasma device to study the wetting of liquid metals on various substrates with different surface treatments; LiMeS-PSI, a linear plasma generator specifically adapted to operate continuous liquid metal loops. Special diagnostic protection will also be implemented to perform measurements in long duration shots without being affected by the liquid metal vapor; LiMeS-TDS, a thermal desorption spectroscopy system to characterize deuterium retention in a metal vapor environment. Each of these devices has specific challenges due to the presence and deposition of metal vapors that need to be addressed in order to function. In this paper, an overview of LiMeS-Lab will be given and the conceptual designs of the last three devices will be presented.

液态金属防护实验室（LiMeS-Lab）将为未来聚变反应堆的液态金属偏滤器设计的开发、测试与对比提供实验支撑平台。该实验室的核心研究方向涵盖：液态金属与偏滤器衬底材料的相互作用、强等离子体热负荷下液态金属的连续循环与毛细补给，以及液态金属对等离子体粒子的滞留行为。为支撑相关研究工作，荷兰基础能源研究所与埃因霍温理工大学正在开发四台新型实验装置：其一为LiMeS-AM，一款基于粉末床熔融工艺的定制化金属3D打印机；其二为LiMeS-Wetting，一款用于研究液态金属在经不同表面处理的各类衬底上润湿性的等离子体实验装置；其三为LiMeS-PSI，一款专为驱动连续液态金属回路设计的线性等离子体发生器；其四为LiMeS-TDS，一款用于表征金属蒸气环境下氘滞留行为的热脱附谱（thermal desorption spectroscopy）系统。同时，研究团队还将为实验装置配备专用诊断防护系统，以确保在长脉冲放电过程中，测量结果不受液态金属蒸气的干扰。上述四台装置均面临由金属蒸气产生与沉积带来的特定技术挑战，需针对性解决以保障装置正常运行。本文将对LiMeS实验室进行整体介绍，并展示其余三台装置的概念设计方案。