Thermal-hydraulic behaviour of the DEMO divertor plasma facing components cooling circuit

Within the framework of the Work Package DIV 1 – “Divertor Cassette Design and Integration” of the EUROfusion action, a research campaign has been jointly carried out by ENEA and University of Palermo to investigate the thermal-hydraulic performances of the DEMO divertor cassette cooling system. A comparative evaluation study has been performed considering three different options for the cooling circuit layout of the divertor Plasma Facing Components (PFCs). The potential improvement in the thermal-hydraulic performance of the cooling system, to be achieved by modifying cooling circuit layout, has been also assessed and discussed in terms of optimization strategy. The research activity has been carried out following a theoretical-computational approach based on the finite volume method and adopting a qualified Computational Fluid-Dynamic (CFD) code. Results obtained are reported and critically discussed.