A new HCPB breeding blanket for the EU DEMO: Evolution, rationale and preliminary performances

Hernández, Francisco A.; Pereslavtsev, P.; Kang, Qinlan; Norajitra, P.; Kiss, Béla; Nádasi, G.; Bitz, O.

doi:10.1016/j.fusengdes.2017.02.008

Cited by 110 publications

(57 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…(b) Schematic of the HCPB blanket design. The breeding and multiplying materials are stored in alternate galleries defined by the blue cooling plates [13].…”

Section: Materials Manufacturing and The Supply Chainmentioning

confidence: 99%

Engineering challenges for accelerated fusion demonstrators

Surrey

2019

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A.

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There are several programmes within the fusion community that are engaged in the design of fusion devices to follow the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), referred to as ‘demonstrators’. These programmes have identified many issues over the past decade, and research now concentrates on optimizing the combination of systems against a set of Key Performance Indicators (KPI) which may vary between programmes. While the return on investment in and experience from ITER is seen as an important factor in this research there are significant differences in the operational conditions and KPI of demonstrators that generate additional problems requiring different solutions. Among these problems are the necessary use of uncommon materials for structural and functional purposes, the impact of the availability KPI on basic machine design, configuration and component lifetime and the integration of the tritium fuel and thermodynamic cycles. These raise issues of component manufacture and standards and of resource availability in the required quantities and quality that are independent of device size and design. Interpreting ‘accelerating fusion’ in a wider sense, the impact of these issues, analysed in respect of developmental timescales, shows that a strategy of early engagement with the industrial supply chain and the development of computational engineering testing and verification will be essential to prevent prolonged timescales to fusion progress. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘Fusion energy using tokamaks: can development be accelerated?’

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“…(b) Schematic of the HCPB blanket design. The breeding and multiplying materials are stored in alternate galleries defined by the blue cooling plates [13].…”

Section: Materials Manufacturing and The Supply Chainmentioning

confidence: 99%

Engineering challenges for accelerated fusion demonstrators

Surrey

2019

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A.

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“…The current HELIAS model is constructed with a layered structure, filled with homogenized materials. As tritium self-sufficiency is an important criterion for a fusion power reactor, HELIAS is filled with a homogenized material mixture of the Helium Cooled Pebble Bed (HCPB) breeder blanket [6]. This breeder concept needs less space compared to other concepts in order to generate a sufficient amount of tritium [7].…”

Section: Helias Geometrymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Two different WW mesh settings were investigated, a uniform mesh with a size of 20x20x20 cm 3 and a nonuniform mesh with a fine representation of 5x5x5 cm 3 in the region of interest and a coarser representation in the other regions. Both meshes have a total number of ~10 6 elements. Higher numbers caused troubles during the WW generation hence this limit was used.…”

Section: Weight Window Generationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Use of mesh based variance reduction technique for shielding calculations of the stellarator power reactor HELIAS

Häußler

Fischer

Warmer

2019

Fusion Engineering and Design

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The shielding capability is an important aspect of a fusion power plant. The neutron flux decreases in areas far away from the plasma chamber while at the same time the statistical error in Monte Carlo particle transport simulations increases significantly in such regions. This requires variance reduction methods to guide the particles in regions of interest and improve the statistical accuracy. The mesh based weight window technique, applied with ADVANTG, is investigated in this paper and successfully applied for the first neutronic investigation of the shielding performance for the HELIAS stellarator. The obtained results are in an area with high neutron wall load and reduced material thickness. They will be evaluated against the design requirements specified for the EU DEMO tokamak fusion reactor. The results show that the current HELIAS design cannot fulfill the shielding limits specified for DEMO in the investigated area, which is mainly due to the limited space available in the stellarator and should be overcome by improved design solutions for blanket and shield.

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“…Helium or Water as coolants, and solid or liquid breeders. The HCPB concept [11], shown in figures 2 -a, -b, -c, -d, is using lithium ceramic pebbles as breeder material (lithium orthosilicate) and beryllium as neutron multiplier. These functional materials are in form of pebble beds (polydisperse pebbles for the Li 4 SiO 4 with pebble diameters ranging from 0.2 mm to 0.6 mm and monosize pebbles for the Be of Ø1 mm).…”

Section: Blanket Concepts Considered For the Initial Integration Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

DEMO port plug design and integration studies

et al. 2017

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The EUROfusion Consortium established in 2014 and composed by European Fusion Laboratories, and in particular the Power Plant Physics and Technology department aims to develop a conceptual design for the Fusion DEMOnstration Power Plant, DEMO. With respect to present experimental machines and ITER, the main goals of DEMO are to produce electricity continuously for a period of about 2 hours, with a net electrical power output of a few hundreds of MW, and to allow Tritium self-sufficient breeding with an adequately high margin in order to guarantee its planned operational schedule, including all planned maintenance intervals. This will eliminate the need to import tritium fuel from external sources during operations. In order to achieve these goals, extensive engineering efforts as well as physics studies are required to develop a design that can ensure a high level of plant reliability and availability. In particular, interfaces between systems must be addressed at a very early phase of the project, in order to proceed consistently. In this paper we present a preliminary design and integration study, based on physics assessments for the EU DEMO1 Baseline 2015 with an Aspect Ratio of 3.1 and 18 Toroidal Field Coils, for the DEMO port plugs. These aim to host systems like Electron Cyclotron Heating launchers currently developed within the Work Package Heating and Current Drive that need an external radial access to the plasma and through in-vessel systems like the breeder blanket. A similar approach shown here could be in principle followed by other systems, e.g. other heating and current drive systems or diagnostics. The work addresses the interfaces between the port plug and the blanket considering the Helium-Cooled Pebble Bed and the Water Cooled Lithium Lead which are two of four breeding blanket concepts under investigation in Europe within the Power Plant Physics and Technology Programme: the required openings will be evaluated in terms of their impact onto the blanket segments thermo-mechanical and nuclear design considering mechanical integration aspects but also their impact on Tritium Breeding Ratio. Since DEMO is still in a pre-conceptual phase, the same methodology is applicable to the other two blanket concepts, as well.

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A new HCPB breeding blanket for the EU DEMO: Evolution, rationale and preliminary performances

Cited by 110 publications

References 11 publications

Engineering challenges for accelerated fusion demonstrators

Engineering challenges for accelerated fusion demonstrators

Use of mesh based variance reduction technique for shielding calculations of the stellarator power reactor HELIAS

DEMO port plug design and integration studies

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