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Fusion Engineering and Design

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/fusengdes

Thermo-mechanical screening tests to qualify beryllium pebble beds

with non-spherical pebbles
Joerg Reimann a, , Benjamin Fretz b , Simone Pupeschi c
a
b
c

IKET, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany

KBHF GmbH, Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany
IAM, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany

h i g h l i g h t s

In present ceramic breeder blankets, pebble-shaped beryllium is used as a neutron multiplier.

Spherical pebbles are considered as the candidate material, however, non-spherical particles are of economic interest.
Thermo-mechanical pebble bed data do merely exist for non-spherical beryllium grades.
Uniaxial compression tests (UCTs), combined with the Hot Wire Technique (HWT) were used to measure the stressstrain relations and the thermal
conductivity.
A small experimental set-up had to be used and a detailed 3D modelling was of prime importance.
Compared to spherical pebble beds, non-spherical pebble beds are generally softer and mainly the thermal conductivity is lower.

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 12 September 2014
Received in revised form 19 February 2015
Accepted 16 April 2015
Available online xxx
Keywords:
Granular materials
Beryllium
Pebble beds
Thermal conductivity
Ceramic breeder blanket

a b s t r a c t
In present ceramic breeder blankets, pebble-shaped beryllium is used as a neutron multiplier. Fairly
spherical pebbles are considered as a candidate material, however, non-spherical particles are of economic interest because production costs are much lower. Yet, thermo-mechanical pebble bed data do
merely exist for these beryllium grades, and the blanket relevant potential of these grades cannot be
judged.
Screening experiments were performed with three different grades of non-spherical beryllium pebbles,
produced by different companies, accompanied by experiments with the reference beryllium pebble beds.
Uniaxial compression tests (UCTs), combined with the Hot Wire Technique (HWT), were performed to
measure both the stressstrain relation and the thermal conductivity, k, at different stress levels. Because
of the limited amounts of the non-spherical materials, the experimental set-ups were small and a detailed
3D modelling was of prime importance in order to prove that the used design was appropriate.
Compared to the pebble beds consisting of spherical pebbles, non-spherical pebble beds are generally
softer (smaller stress for a given strain), and, mainly as a consequence of this, for a given strain value,
the thermal conductivity is lower. This means for blanket operation that the desired increase of thermal
conductivity during thermal compression is smaller.
2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
In present ceramic breeder blankets, pebble-shaped beryllium
is used as a multiplier. The candidate material Be-1 consists of
fairly spherical pebbles with diameters of d 1 mm. Non-spherical
beryllium particles can be produced much cheaper and, therefore,
are of signicant economic interest. There is a large database of

Corresponding author. Tel.: +49 721811810.

E-mail address: joerg.reimann@partner.kit.edu (J. Reimann).

thermo-mechanical properties for Be-1, see e.g., [14], but nearly

no data exist for non-spherical grades.
The fundamental characterization of pebble beds consists of (i)
blanket relevant lling experiments for measuring the packing factor  ( is the ratio of pebble volume to total volume), (ii) uniaxial
compression tests (UCTs) in order to determine the pebble bed
stressstrain () relation, (iii) the measurement of the pebble
bed thermal conductivity, k.
Three grades of non-spherical beryllium pebbles were investigated: Be-A and Be-C produced by the Bochvar Institute [5],
Russia, and Be-D from Materion, USA, see Fig. 1. These grades were

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piston

4 diplacement
transmitters
TC

TC

hot wire
D=60mm
pebble bed

Fig. 2. Experimental set-up.

Fig. 1. Investigated Be pebble grades.

manufactured by crushing sintered beryllium blocks and subsequent grinding. Scrap-type pebbles were obtained with largest
dimensions of 2.5 mm. Because the available amounts of these
grades was limited (120 cm3 ), the experimental set-ups had to
be small, which is especially unfavourable for the k measurement,
as outlined below. Therefore, experiments with Be-1 from NGK,
Japan, were also carried out and the comparison between the
different beryllium grades is important (screening experiments).
Results of lling experiments showed no signicant differences
of the packing factor for the spherical and the non-spherical pebbles
[57]. This paper contains results on UCTs combined with the Hot
Wire Technique (HWT) to measure k.
2. Experimental and data evaluation
2.1. Experimental
The experiments were performed in a glove-box in a helium
atmosphere at ambient temperature. The small pebble bed volume
excluded the use the HECOP facility [3] for k measurement and
instead the HWT was chosen. Fig. 2 shows schematically the UCT
set-up with the cylindrical container (inner diameter Dcyl = 60 mm,
height Hcyl = 50 mm) and the HW which consisted of an indirectly
heated heater (outer diameter: 1 mm, thickness of outer stainless
steel tube: 0.1 mm, MgO insulator thickness: 0.3 mm, diameter of
the inner electrically heated wire: 0.2 mm, heated length within
the pebble bed: L = 55 mm, position above cylinder bottom: 25 mm)
with two 0.25 mm diameter thermocouples welded on the wire
surface.
Before the container was positioned in the press, the pebble bed
was densied by vibration. Table 1 shows the obtained packing
factors, , and the maximum uniaxial stresses, , of the UCTs.
2.2. HWT: modelling and data evaluation
The pulsed HWT is a standard technique for the k measurement
of, primarily, low k materials [8]. A linear heat source (thin wire)
is embedded in the centre of the investigated material with large
outer dimensions. The temperature rise of the wire is measured

by thermocouples welded on the wire surface. At time t = 0, the

electric power is switched on. By analyzing the temperature rise
of the heater over a dened time interval the thermal conductivity
of the surrounding material can be derived. Typical temperature
vs. the logarithm of time graphs for the transient hot wire method
show a linear region between two non-linear portions at both short
and long times. The non-linearity at short times is caused by the HW
heat capacity and the heat resistance between the wire and the
surrounding material, while the non-linearity associated to long
times is related to the boundary effect at the container walls.
For the evaluation of k, only the linear region is relevant. After
a certain time period when the HW heat capacity and the HW heat
transfer coefcient, HTC, no longer play a role, Eq. (1) holds
k = q/(4) ln(t2 /t1 )/(T2 T1 ),

(1)

where q is the electrical power per unit length, q = Q/L. Then, Eq. (1)
results in a straight curve with the slope (T2 T1 )/ln(t2 /t1 ).
In the present tests, two requirements of the HWT are not well
fullled:
Low k: The term (T2 T1 ) must be sufciently large for achieving a good measurement accuracy. This is difcult for beryllium
pebble beds, however, satisfactory results could be obtained even
for strongly compressed beryllium pebble beds [9] by tting the
temperature curves in the time range of interest by a 3rd order
polynomial and using its derivative in Eq. (1).
Large container dimensions: The small container dimensions
result in a temperature curve without a constant slope, see Fig. 3
which shows the HW temperature as a function of the time t* = log t.
After t* 0.5, the slope is still a slight function of time. In order to
quantify this effect, a 3D model was developed, as outlined below,
which describes in detail the experimental set-up including the
inner structure of the HW.
The transient thermal analyses have been carried out with
the Finite Element commercial code ANSYS [10]. Because of

Table 1
Experimental parameters.
Batch

Exp. no.

 (%)

 max (MPa)

Be-1
Be-1
Be-A
Be-A
Be-C
Be-D
Be-D

1
2
3
4
5
6
7

61.64
62.35
61.79
63.16
59.46
60.90
62.12

7.0
4.8
4.3
4.7
3.9
4.7
4.4

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5,0
Exp 2d: nominal value for 3D calc: k=4W/mK
50

meas.
Exp 2d
meas
3D calc

k [W/mK]

T (C)

3D calc.

4,5

40

30

20

4,0

3,5

10

0
-1

-0,5

0,5
t*= log t [s]

1,5

3,0
1

1,2

1,4

1,6

1,8

t*= logt(s)

Fig. 3. Measured and calculated T/I = f(t*).

Fig. 5. Measured and calculated k = f(t*).

10,0
9,0
Be-1: k calibration: k = 16,559t*2 - 65,864t* + 66,839
8,0
t*cal
2a
2b
2d
2e
2g
2i

k [W/mK]

7,0
6,0
5,0
4,0
3,0

2d meas: k = 1,0442t*2 - 1,6185t* + 3,9404

2,0
1,0
Fig. 4. Mesh of 3D model.

0,0
1,0

symmetries, only a quarter of the experimental set-up was

implemented, see Fig. 4.
All the symmetrical surfaces, as well as all the outer surfaces
of the container, have been considered as adiabatic surfaces. The
heat resistances between the heater surface and pebble bed and
between the bed and the container wall were simulated by applying
an HTC, which enables ANSYS to describe the different heat transfer
mechanisms of pebble beds close to walls compared to the bulk
region. At a time t = 0, the internal heat generation is applied to the
heater simulating the electric power of the experiment. The internal
heat generation is kept constant for the duration of the simulation.
The numerical modelling aims to generate a T = f(t*) dependence
which agrees with the measured one, see Fig. 3. For the calculation,
a nominal value for the pebble bed thermal conductivity has to be
assumed, and then, the measured curve is approached by varying
the HTCs at the HW and the container walls. Both the measured
and the calculated k depend on time t*, see Fig. 5.
An iteration procedure is required in order to vary the nominal
k in such a way that the measured and calculated k-values agree
at the same value of t*. For k = 4 W/mK, the only solution exists at
t* = 1.6. This procedure is carried out for several experimental points
). Fig. 6 shows
in order to determine the calibration curve k = f (tcal
the result for Exp 2 with Be-1. In the same way, the calibration curve
for the non-spherical grades was obtained.

1,2

1,4

1,6

1,8

2,0

t*=log t
Fig. 6. Be-1: measured k and calibration curve for Be-1.

container dimensions is primarily caused by the fact that the volume fractions of the wall layers with d/2 thicknesses increase, for
details, see [11].
Fig. 7 shows the uniaxial stress, , as a function of the pebble
bed strain, , obtained by the UCTs. For most experiments, at intermediate or maximum  values some cycles were also carried out.
With decreasing , the pebble beds become softer, that is, for a

3. Results
The achieved packing factors were generally smaller than the
value 63.5%, considered as reference value, obtained with a signicantly larger container [2]. The decrease of  with decreasing

Fig. 7. Stress increase and cycling curves.

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thermal conductivity k(W/mK)

10

Be-1, Exp1
Be-A, Exp3
Be-C, Exp5
Be-D, Exp7
HW [9]

The thermal conductivity was also measured at distinct points of

the stress decrease curve. As observed previously [24], k decreases
only to a small extend from the maximum value, measured at the
beginning of the stress decrease cycle. This is caused (i) by the closer
packing of pebbles, (compare the small strain changes in Fig. 7), (ii)
larger contact numbers, and by (iii) increased contact zones because
of plastic deformation.
Pebble size distributions were measured before and after the
UCT tests. No measurable quantities of fractured particles were
found.

Be-1, Exp2
Be-A, Exp4
Be-D, Exp6
HECOP [2]

0
0,00

0,25

0,50

0,75

1,00

uniaxial strain (%)

1,25

4. Summary and conclusions

1,50

Fig. 8. Thermal conductivity for rst stress increase.

thermal conductivity k(W/mK)

10
Be-1, Exp1
Be-1, Exp2
Be-A, Exp3
Be-A, Exp4
Be-C, Exp5
Be-D, Exp6
Be-D, Exp7

0
0

uniaxial stress (MPa)

Fig. 9. Thermal conductivity as a function of stress.

given stress, , value, a larger strain, , occurs. Be-1, and Exp 4 with
Be-A, show the stiffest behaviour but the values are still below the
reference correlation [2].
Fig. 8 summarizes the k measurements for the rst pressure
increase period by keeping the stress constant during the HW measurements. The results for the rather spherical Be-1 pebbles are
again below the previously proposed correlations. However, the
values are still signicantly above the results for the non-spherical
grades. One reason for this can be the softer pebble bed behaviour
of the non-spherical grades, see Fig. 7, because for a given value,
the compression is smaller and with this the increase of contact
surfaces. This argument does not hold for Exp 4, where the k values
are also smaller although the stressstrain dependence is similar
to Be-1. In a graph k = f(), Fig. 9, the differences between Be-1 and
the non-spherical grades are smaller but still the candidate pebble
beds are at the upper bound which can indicate that the generated
contact surfaces are smaller for the scrap-type pebbles.
For blanket operation, the pebble bed strain is the primary
parameter because the constrained expansions between blanket
box and pebble beds are the reason for the stress build-up. Therefore, Fig. 8 is of prime relevance.

Screening experiments were performed to investigate the

thermo-mechanical behaviour of beryllium pebble beds consisting
of non-spherical pebbles. For comparison, experiments with spherical pebbles, considered as reference material, were performed as
well. Compared to the reference pebble beds, the thermal conductivity for non-spherical pebble beds is lower caused by (i) the
softer bed behaviour (smaller stress  for a given strain value),
and, (ii) the generation of smaller contact surfaces because of the
non-regular pebble shape.
The results from previous lling experiments [57] and the
present investigations are only considered as a rst step in respect
to the thermomechanical characterization of non-spherical pebble
beds. These investigations should be repeated with more relevant experimental set-ups when it has been demonstrated that
the degradation under irradiation of these pebbles (or small pebble
stacks) is acceptable.
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