R&D of DRAGON series lithium-lead loops for material and blanket technology testing

The liquid LiPb blanket concept has become a promising design for fusion reactor in the world, and a series of fusion reactors with LiPb blankets have been designed by FDS team in China. To support the various designs and technologies of Chinese LiPb breeder blankets, LiPb experimental loops have been built to follow the different phases of LiPb blankets requirements and to achieve different testing functions. Three thermal convection loops named DRAGON-I, II, and III were built to carry out the compatibility experiments and validate the loop technology, and the multifunctional forced convection loops named DRAGON-IV and V were built or designed to validate the magnetohydrodynamic effect and thermal-hydraulics test. Three sets of He-LiPb dualcoolant auxiliary systems named DRAGON-VI, VII, and VIII were designed and proposed for testing test blanket modules in EAST, ITER, and DEMO blankets in the future. An overview on the design and construction of these loops is introduced in this paper, as well as some preliminary experiments done in the loops.