Consolidated design of the HCPB Breeding Blanket for the pre-Conceptual Design Phase of the EU DEMO and harmonization with the ITER HCPB TBM program

Hernández, Francisco A.; Pereslavtsev, P.; Zhou, Guangming; Kang, Qinlan; D’Amico, Salvatore; Neuberger, Heiko; Boccaccini, L.V.; Kiss, Béla; Nádasi, G.; Maqueda, L.; Cristescu, I.; Moscato, I.; Ricapito, I.; Cismondi, F.

doi:10.1016/j.fusengdes.2020.111614

Cited by 69 publications

(49 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…At the end of the pre-conceptual design phase in 2020, two breeding blanket concepts were under evaluation for their adoption as the driver-blanket of the EU-DEMO reactor [2]: the Helium-Cooled Pebble Bed (HCPB) concept [3], adopting helium as the coolant and ceramic lithium-beryllide compounds in the form of pebbles as the breeder and neutron multiplier, and the Water-Cooled Lead-Lithium (WCLL) concept. The WCLL BB relies on the adoption of water in pressurized water reactor (PWR) conditions as the coolant and PbLi liquid metal alloy as the neutron multiplier, tritium breeder, and carrier medium, where Li acts as the breeder material and Pb acts as the neutron multiplier.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The DEMO Water-Cooled Lead–Lithium Breeding Blanket: Design Status at the End of the Pre-Conceptual Design Phase

et al. 2021

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The Water-Cooled Lead–Lithium Breeding Blanket (WCLL BB) is one of the two blanket concept candidates to become the driver blanket of the EU-DEMO reactor. The design was enacted with a holistic approach. The influence that neutronics, thermal-hydraulics (TH), thermo-mechanics (TM) and magneto-hydro-dynamics (MHD) may have on the design were considered at the same time. This new approach allowed for the design team to create a WCLL BB layout that is able to comply with different foreseen requirements in terms of integration, tritium self-sufficiency, and TH and TM needs. In this paper, the rationale behind the design choices and the main characteristics of the WCLL BB needed for the EU-DEMO are reported and discussed. Finally, the main achievements reached during the pre-conceptual design phase and some remaining open issues to be further investigated in the upcoming conceptual design phase are reported as well.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The DEMO Water-Cooled Lead–Lithium Breeding Blanket: Design Status at the End of the Pre-Conceptual Design Phase

et al. 2021

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“…KIT proposes a HCPB design for DEMO with the breeder zone built up from pin-like components [1,2]. A single pin may be regarded as the smallest meaningful representative unit cell for tritium transport simulation inside the BZ.…”

Section: Demo Hcpb Single Pin Simulation Setupmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Tritium, as one of the two necessary fuels for the currently technically pursued D-T fusion process, will have to be produced inside the fusion plant blanket itself-e.g., starting from lithium making use of the fusion neutrons. For the so-called breeding of tritium, one European concept for DEMO, called the helium-cooled pebble bed (HCPB) uses a pebble bed of an advanced lithium ceramic breeder (ACB), namely Li 4 SiO 4 with 35% mol Li 2 TiO 3 [1,2]. A beryllide (Be 12 Ti) block is foreseen as neutron multiplier to gain the required breeding neutrons at suitable energies to breed tritium in the neighboring ACB bed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of a Component-Level Hydrogen Transport Model with OpenFOAM and Application to Tritium Transport Inside a DEMO HCPB Breeder

et al. 2021

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This work continues the development of a numerical model to simulate transient tritium transport on the breeder zone (BZ) level for the EU helium-cooled pebble bed (HCPB) concept for DEMO. The basis of the model is the open-source field operation and manipulation framework, OpenFOAM. The key output quantities of the model are the tritium concentration in the purge gas and in the coolant and the tritium inventory inside the BZ structure. New model features are briefly summarized. As a first relevant application a simulation of tritium transport for a single pin out of the KIT HCPB design for DEMO is presented. A variety of scenarios investigates the impact of the permeation regime (diffusion-limited vs. surface-limited), of an additional hydrogen content of 300 Pa H2 in the purge gas, of the released species (HT vs. T2), and of the choice of species-specific rate constants (recombination constant of HT set twice as for H2 and T2). The results indicate that the released species plays a minor role for permeation. Both permeation and inventory show a considerable dependence on a possible hydrogen addition in the purge gas. An enhanced HT recombination constant reduces steel T inventories and, in the diffusion-limited case, also permeation significantly. Scenarios with 80 bar vs. 2 bar purge gas pressure indicate that purge gas volumetric flow is decisive for permeation.

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“…The mean TBR values are 1.164 and 1.124 for the HCPB and WCLL DEMOs, respectively. The reference TBRs for the consolidated blankets designs obtained within the EUROfusion program are 1.181 [27] and 1.150 [28] for the HCPB and WCLL DEMOs. The mean TBR for both cases are shifted to the smaller numbers.…”

Section: Uncertainty Assessment Of Tbr For Nuclear Data From Tendl Librarymentioning

confidence: 99%

Statistical Analysis of Tritium Breeding Ratio Deviations in the DEMO Due to Nuclear Data Uncertainties

et al. 2021

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For the stable and self-sufficient functioning of the DEMO fusion reactor, one of the most important parameters that must be demonstrated is the Tritium Breeding Ratio (TBR). The reliable assessment of the TBR with safety margins is a matter of fusion reactor viability. The uncertainty of the TBR in the neutronic simulations includes many different aspects such as the uncertainty due to the simplification of the geometry models used, the uncertainty of the reactor layout and the uncertainty introduced due to neutronic calculations. The last one can be reduced by applying high fidelity Monte Carlo simulations for TBR estimations. Nevertheless, these calculations have inherent statistical errors controlled by the number of neutron histories, straightforward for a quantity such as that of TBR underlying errors due to nuclear data uncertainties. In fact, every evaluated nuclear data file involved in the MCNP calculations can be replaced with the set of the random data files representing the particular deviation of the nuclear model parameters, each of them being correct and valid for applications. To account for the uncertainty of the nuclear model parameters introduced in the evaluated data file, a total Monte Carlo (TMC) method can be used to analyze the uncertainty of TBR owing to the nuclear data used for calculations. To this end, two 3D fully heterogeneous geometry models of the helium cooled pebble bed (HCPB) and water cooled lithium lead (WCLL) European DEMOs were utilized for the calculations of the TBR. The TMC calculations were performed, making use of the TENDL-2017 nuclear data library random files with high enough statistics providing a well-resolved Gaussian distribution of the TBR value. The assessment was done for the estimation of the TBR uncertainty due to the nuclear data for entire material compositions and for separate materials: structural, breeder and neutron multipliers. The overall TBR uncertainty for the nuclear data was estimated to be 3~4% for the HCPB and WCLL DEMOs, respectively.

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Consolidated design of the HCPB Breeding Blanket for the pre-Conceptual Design Phase of the EU DEMO and harmonization with the ITER HCPB TBM program

Cited by 69 publications

References 27 publications

The DEMO Water-Cooled Lead–Lithium Breeding Blanket: Design Status at the End of the Pre-Conceptual Design Phase

The DEMO Water-Cooled Lead–Lithium Breeding Blanket: Design Status at the End of the Pre-Conceptual Design Phase

Development of a Component-Level Hydrogen Transport Model with OpenFOAM and Application to Tritium Transport Inside a DEMO HCPB Breeder

Statistical Analysis of Tritium Breeding Ratio Deviations in the DEMO Due to Nuclear Data Uncertainties

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