Preliminary investigation of neutron shielding compounds for ARC-class tokamaks

Segantin, Stefano; Meschini, Samuele; Testoni, Raffaella; Zucchetti, Massimo

doi:10.1016/j.fusengdes.2022.113335

Cited by 8 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Segantin et al [30] and Bocci et al [31] investigated the effect of vacuum vessel material choice, channel and neutron multiplier thickness, and Li 2 BeF 4 enrichment on TBR. Another study by Segantin et al investigates the neutronics impact of different shielding compounds [32]. Other studies have investigated the effects of TBR for DEMOnstration power plant (DEMO) for first wall material and thickness as well as divertor geometry with the Helium Cooled Pebble Bed (HCPB) design [33,34], and a similar study investigated a Li 2 O blanket [35].…”

Section: Previous Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integral analysis of the effect of material dimension and composition on tokamak neutronics ^*

Bae,

Young,

Borowiec

et al. 2024

Nucl. Fusion

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The neutronics performance of a tokamak has been identified as an important factor in designing a fusion power plant. The design of the tokamak should not only meet operational parameters such as sufficient tritium breeding, but also safety parameters such as low structural material activation. This paper investigates the impacts of the neutronics metrics for the ARC-class tokamak, a compact tokamak with an immersion blanket, by perturbing the first five layers of structural material - first wall, inner vacuum vessel, coolant salt channel, neutron multiplier, and outer vacuum vessel. The goal of this work is to provide insight into shaping and scaling the flux on each layer to obtain optimized operational and safety metrics through quantification of the responses from each perturbation.Results show that increased first wall thickness can increase the tritium breeding ratio (TBR) in specific configurations with high Li6 enrichments and that vacuum vessels decrease TBR for low-Li6 enrichment configurations. It was also found that the neutron multiplier can either increase or decrease TBR depending on the configuration. The response of metrics to the change in layer thickness and enrichment also varies depending on the vacuum vessel material. The integral impacts of Li6 enrichment, layer thicknesses, and vacuum vessel material choice are investigated and presented in this paper.

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Section: Previous Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integral analysis of the effect of material dimension and composition on tokamak neutronics ^*

Bae,

Young,

Borowiec

et al. 2024

Nucl. Fusion

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“…It also provides efficient heat conduction away from the coupled first wall (FW)-VV structure, which is very important at the high power density ARC proposes. Analyses of ARC have been carried out in the fields of materials science [10][11][12], thermal analysis [13][14][15], neutronics [13,[16][17][18], and plasma physics [2,13,19].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modeling and analysis of the tritium fuel cycle for ARC- and STEP-class D-T fusion power plants

Meschini,

Ferry,

Delaporte-Mathurin

et al. 2023

Nucl. Fusion

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The limited tritium resources available for the first fusion power plants (FPPs) make fuel self-sufficiency and tritium inventory minimization leading issues in FPP design. This work builds on the model proposed by M. Abdou et al. \cite{abdou2020physics}, which analyzed the fuel cycle of a DEMO-class FPP with a time-dependent system-level model. Here, we use a modified version of their model to analyze the fuel cycle of an ARC-class tokamak and two versions of a STEP-class tokamak. The ARC-class tokamak breeds tritium in a FLiBe liquid immersion blanket (LIB), while the STEP-class tokamak breeds tritium utilizing either a liquid-lithium blanket design or an Encapsulated Breeding Blanket (EBB). A time-dependent system-level model is developed in Matlab Simulink~\textregistered\hspace{.2em} to simulate the evolution of tritium flows and tritium inventories in the fuel cycle. The main goals of this work are to assess tritium self-sufficiency of the ARC- and STEP-class designs and to determine quantitative design requirements that can be used to analyze the adequacy of a proposed fuel cycle system. These design requirements are aimed at achieving a low tritium inventory doubling time ($t_d$) and a low start-up inventory ($I_{\mathrm{startup}}$) while keeping the required tritium breeding ratio (TBR$_r$) as low as possible. We also consider how improvements in fuel cycle technology and plasma operations affect TBR$_r$ and $I_{\mathrm{startup}}$. The model results show that TBR$_r$ for ARC- and STEP-class FPPs should be achievable if the tritium burn efficiency (TBE) reaches 0.5-1\% (TBR$_r <$ 1.2). This assumes significant, but attainable, improvements over current abilities. However, the model results indicate that a FPP must achieve ambitious performance targets, including FPP availability $>$70\%, tritium processing time $<$4~h, and the implementation of direct internal recycling. If future research yields major improvements to achievable TBE, it may be possible to achieve tritium self-sufficiency while operating at lower availability and without implementing DIR.

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“…ENDF / B-VII nuclear data files were used for cross-section data of nuclear reactions[21]. The neutron source intensity of the reactor is 9 × 10 18 n/s[6]. The neutron source emits 14.1 MeV isotropic neutrons, with height, width and depth set at 100 cm on the central axis of the cylinder.…”

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confidence: 99%

Effect of the various tritium breeding materials on the tritium breeding ratio in ARC fusion reactor

ATALAY,

TUNÇ

2023

International Journal of Energy Studies

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This study deals with TBR (Tritium Breeding Ratio) performance of the four different types of molten salt (FLiBe, FLiNaK, FLiNaBe, FLiNaRb) which has four different Li-6 enrichment ratios (0%, 30%, 60%, 90%) Moreover, two different vacuum vessel materials (SiC composite and V4Cr4Ti alloy) have been used in ARC reactor geometry. In models with TBR ≥1.05, it has been desired to examine the sustainability of the tritium production of the reactor by removing the neutron multiplication layer from the design without using the toxic Beryllium element. The neutronic performance studies have been examined in OpenMC, which is an open-source Monte Carlo neutron and photon transport code. The TBR values of the different models obtained and the change of these values according to Li-6 enrichment were examined. Thus, in an ARC fusion reactor whose design studies are ongoing, different materials and design options, the performance of the reactor to provide sustainable tritium production will be examined, thus contributing to the literature and future studies.

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Preliminary investigation of neutron shielding compounds for ARC-class tokamaks

Cited by 8 publications

References 17 publications

Integral analysis of the effect of material dimension and composition on tokamak neutronics ^*

Integral analysis of the effect of material dimension and composition on tokamak neutronics ^*

Modeling and analysis of the tritium fuel cycle for ARC- and STEP-class D-T fusion power plants

Effect of the various tritium breeding materials on the tritium breeding ratio in ARC fusion reactor

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Preliminary investigation of neutron shielding compounds for ARC-class tokamaks

Cited by 8 publications

References 17 publications

Integral analysis of the effect of material dimension and composition on tokamak neutronics *

Integral analysis of the effect of material dimension and composition on tokamak neutronics *

Modeling and analysis of the tritium fuel cycle for ARC- and STEP-class D-T fusion power plants

Effect of the various tritium breeding materials on the tritium breeding ratio in ARC fusion reactor

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Integral analysis of the effect of material dimension and composition on tokamak neutronics ^*

Integral analysis of the effect of material dimension and composition on tokamak neutronics ^*