Thermal and mechanical properties of ceramic blanket particle bed materials: Numerical derivation

In this paper, recent work on the modeling for predicting the e€ective thermal and mechanical properties of the ceramic breeder blanket particle bed materials is presented. The model is based on the micromechanics displacement method in conjunction with an iterative process of the successive releasing of ®xing vectors. It serves as an useful tool to study the blanket thermomechanical state under prototypical conditions. The stress and strain relationship of the sphere-pac bed under an applied external constraint was studied. In addition, the model was applied to the analysis of stress exerted on the container wall due to bed thermal expansion, while calculations were made to estimate the bed e€ective modulus and mean thermal expansion coecient. Further development of this computer simulation model is recommended. Ó 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.