• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.318-330
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• 2009

A high heat flux test facility using a graphite heating panel was constructed and is presently in operation at Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, which is called KoHLT-1. Its major purpose is to carry out a thermal cycle test to verify the integrity of a HIP (hot isostatic pressing) bonded Be mockups which were fabricated for developing HIP joining technology to bond different metals, i.e., Be-to-CuCrZr and CuCrZr-to-SS316L, for the ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) first wall. The KoHLT-1 consists of a graphite heating panel, a box-type test chamber with water-cooling jackets, an electrical DC power supply, a water-cooling system, an evacuation system, an He gas system, and some diagnostics, which are equipped in an authorized laboratory with a special ventilation system for the Be treatment. The graphite heater is placed between two mockups, and the gap distance between the heater and the mockup is adjusted to $2{\sim}3\;mm$. We designed and fabricated several graphite heating panels to have various heating areas depending on the tested mockups, and to have the electrical resistances of $0.2{\sim}0.5$ ohms during high temperature operation. The heater is connected to an electrical DC power supply of 100 V/400 A. The heat flux is easily controlled by the pre-programmed control system which consists of a personal computer and a multi function module. The heat fluxes on the two mockups are deduced from the flow rate and the coolant inlet/out temperatures by a calorimetric method. We have carried out the thermal cycle tests of various Be mockups, and the reliability of the KoHLT-1 for long time operation at a high heat flux was verified, and its broad applicability is promising.