Contribution of activation products to fusion accident risk: part II. Effects of alternative materials and designs
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. We 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 94720
- OSTI ID:
- 6845501
- Journal Information:
- Nucl. Technol.; (United States), Journal Name: Nucl. Technol.; (United States) Vol. 4:3; ISSN NUTYB
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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ACCIDENTS
ACTIVATION ANALYSIS
ALKALI METALS
ALLOYS
BARYON REACTIONS
CARBIDES
CARBON COMPOUNDS
CHEMICAL ANALYSIS
CHROMIUM ALLOYS
CHROMIUM STEELS
CHROMIUM-NICKEL STEELS
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
CORROSION RESISTANT ALLOYS
DATA
DOSES
ELEMENTS
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
FERRITIC STEELS
FIRST WALL
HADRON REACTIONS
HAZARDS
HEALTH HAZARDS
HEAT RESISTANT MATERIALS
HEAT RESISTING ALLOYS
INFORMATION
IRON ALLOYS
IRON BASE ALLOYS
LITHIUM
MATERIALS
METALS
MOLYBDENUM
MOLYBDENUM ALLOYS
NEUTRON REACTIONS
NICKEL ALLOYS
NUCLEAR REACTIONS
NUCLEON REACTIONS
NUMERICAL DATA
RADIATION DOSES
RADIATION HAZARDS
RADIOACTIVATION
RADIOACTIVITY
REACTOR ACCIDENTS
RISK ASSESSMENT
SILICON CARBIDES
SILICON COMPOUNDS
STAINLESS STEEL-316
STAINLESS STEELS
STEELS
THEORETICAL DATA
THERMONUCLEAR REACTOR MATERIALS
THERMONUCLEAR REACTOR WALLS
THERMONUCLEAR REACTORS
TRANSITION ELEMENTS