High Heat Flux Mapping of Electro Thermal Plasma Jet Using Semi Infinite Solid Conduction

Abstract

Due to increasing demand of energy and rapid depletion of fossil fuel, engineers and scientist around the world are looking towards the alternative forms of energy. One alternative is the generation of energy through fusion reaction. To realize this potential of fusion reaction, worlds leading nations have been extensively involved in ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) project. One of the challenges is the development of new material which can withstand the extreme heat flux that is expected in fusion reaction of ITER. The newly developed material needs to be tested under very high heat flux environment as expected in ITER. This environment can be simulated using electro thermal plasma as a heat source for material synthesis. To synthesize the material, the actual heat flux profile of the electro thermal plasma needs to be known. In this thesis attempt has been made to design a system by which flux distribution of the electro thermal plasma jet can be etermined. The designed system has been used to find the flux distribution of electro thermal plasma jet generated at NFTDC facility Hyderabad. The results at various gun-target separations have been presented in the form of colored maps. Finally the (area) weighted average heat flux has been plotted against the gun-target separation to see its effect on the average heat flux of the plasma jet.