Complexity and availability for fusion power plants: The potential advantages of inertial fusion energy
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (United States)
Probably the single largest advantage of the inertial route to fusion energy (IFE) is the perception that its power plant embodiments could achieve acceptable capacity factors. This is a result of its relative simplicity, the decoupling of the driver and reactor chamber, and the potential to employ thick liquid walls. The author examines these issues in terms of the complexity, reliability, maintainability and, therefore, availability of both magnetic and inertial fusion power plants and compares these factors with corresponding scheduled and unscheduled outage data from present day fission experience. The author stresses that, given the simple nature of a fission core, the vast majority of unplanned outages in fission plants are due to failures outside the reactor vessel itself. Given one must be prepared for similar outages in the analogous plant external to a fusion power core, this puts severe demands on the reliability required of the fusion core itself. The author indicates that such requirements can probably be met for IFE plants. He recommends that this advantage be promoted by performing a quantitative reliability and availability study for a representative IFE power plant and suggests that databases are probably adequate for this task. 40 refs., 4 figs., 3 tabs.
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-48
- OSTI ID:
- 577087
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Fusion Energy, Vol. 16, Issue 4; Other Information: PBD: Dec 1997
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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