An assessment of the base blanket for ITER

Conference · Tue Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1991

OSTI ID:5857198

Raffray, A R; Abdou, M A; Ying, A

Ideally, the ITER base blanket would provide the necessary tritium for the reactor to be self-sufficient during operation, while having minimal impact on the overall reactor cost, reliability and safety. A solid breeder blanket has been developed in CDA phase in an attempt to achieve such objectives. The reference solid breeder base blanket configurations at the end of the CDA phase has many attractive features such as a tritium breeding ratio (TBR) of 0.8--0.9 and a reasonably low tritium inventory. However, some concerns regarding the risk, cost and benefit of the base blanket have been raised. These include uncertainties associated with the solid breeder thermal control and the potentially high cost of the amount of Be used to achieve high TBR and to provide the necessary thermal barrier between the high temperature solid breeder and low temperature coolant. This work addresses these concerns. The basis for the selection of a breeding blanket is first discussed in light of the incremental risk, cost and benefits relative to a non-breeding blanket. Key issues associated with the CDA breeding blanket configurations are then analyzed. Finally, alternative schemes that could enhance the attractiveness and flexibility of a breeding blanket are explored.

• Research Organization: California Univ., Los Angeles, CA (United States). Dept. of Mechanical, Aerospace and Nuclear Engineering
• Sponsoring Organization: DOE; USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: FG03-88ER52150
• OSTI ID: 5857198
• Report Number(s): CONF-910968-69; ON: DE92008534
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
700450* -- Fusion Technology-- Blankets & Cooling Systems-- (1992-)
ALKALI METAL ISOTOPES
BREEDING BLANKETS
CLOSED PLASMA DEVICES
COST BENEFIT ANALYSIS
DESIGN
ECONOMIC ANALYSIS
ECONOMICS
ISOTOPES
ITER TOKAMAK
LIGHT NUCLEI
LITHIUM 7
LITHIUM ISOTOPES
NUCLEI
ODD-EVEN NUCLEI
REACTOR COMPONENTS
RISK ASSESSMENT
STABLE ISOTOPES
THERMAL ANALYSIS
THERMONUCLEAR DEVICES
TOKAMAK DEVICES