Contribution of activation products to fusion accident risk: Part II. Effects of alternative materials and designs

Journal Article · Tue Nov 01 04:00:00 EST 1983 · Nucl. Technol./Fusion; (United States)

OSTI ID:6184369

Holdren, J P; Fetter, S

Comparison of accident-hazard potentials associated with neutron-activation products in fusion reactors of various designs and structural materials suffers from a number of shortcomings in the readily available hazard-index data. Neither inventories of curies nor biological hazard potentials (BHPs) are satisfactory indices of hazard even if consistently computed, and between-study inconsistencies in neutronics packages and BHP calculations further obscure the meaning of comparisons based on these measures. The authors present here the results of internally consistent calculations of radioactive inventories, BHPs, and off-site dose potentials associated with the first walls of nine reactor-design/first-wall-material combinations. A recent mirror-reactor design reduces off-site dose potentials by a factor of 2 compared to a muchstudied early tokamak, for a given first-wall material. Holding design fixed, HT-9 ferritic steel offers a factor of 2 reduction in dose potential compared to Type 316 stainless steel. By the dose-potential measure, molybdenum is the worst of the materials investigated and silicon carbide is by far the best. Hazards in realizable accidents depend not only on the hypothetical dose potentials, as calculated here, but also on the actual release fractions of first-wall (or other activated) material. Review of the theoretical and experimental evidence bearing on release fractions suggests that, for most candidate materials, high release fractions from designs containing liquid lithium cannot yet be convincingly ruled out.

• Research Organization: University of California, Berkeley Energy and Resources Group, Berkeley, California
• OSTI ID: 6184369
• Journal Information: Nucl. Technol./Fusion; (United States), Journal Name: Nucl. Technol./Fusion; (United States) Vol. 4:3; ISSN NTFUD
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
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ACCIDENTS
ALKALI METALS
ALLOYS
CALCULATION METHODS
CARBIDES
CARBON COMPOUNDS
CHROMIUM ALLOYS
CHROMIUM STEELS
CHROMIUM-NICKEL STEELS
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
CORROSION RESISTANT ALLOYS
DOSE RATES
ELEMENTS
FERRITIC STEELS
FIRST WALL
HAZARDS
HEALTH HAZARDS
HEAT RESISTANT MATERIALS
HEAT RESISTING ALLOYS
IRON ALLOYS
IRON BASE ALLOYS
LITHIUM
MATERIALS
MATERIALS TESTING
METALS
MOLYBDENUM
MOLYBDENUM ALLOYS
NICKEL ALLOYS
RADIATION HAZARDS
RADIOACTIVATION
REACTOR ACCIDENTS
RISK ASSESSMENT
SILICON CARBIDES
SILICON COMPOUNDS
STAINLESS STEEL-316
STAINLESS STEELS
STEELS
TESTING
THERMONUCLEAR REACTOR MATERIALS
THERMONUCLEAR REACTOR WALLS
THERMONUCLEAR REACTORS
TRANSITION ELEMENTS