Development of a system level code for tritium transport analysis of the WCCB blanket for CFETR

Abstract

Tritium is the fuel for the future D–T magnetic-confined fusion devices such as the China Fusion Engineering Test Reactor (CFETR). Accurate assessment of the tritium transport behaviors within the reactor is essential to the fulfillment of fuel self-sustainability and public safety concerns. Due to the radioactive nature of this hydrogen isotope, numerical simulations are often used as a more convenient and realizable approach to provide data and insights regarding the evaluation of overall tritium distribution, permeation, and inventory. In this work, we developed an in-house tritium transport analysis code for the water-cooled ceramic breeder (WCCB) blanket for CFETR at the system level. The math-physics models applied incorporate the multi-physical processes required in the full functional description of macroscopic tritium transport. The code extends the capability of the existing, pioneering 0D codes in this area to take care of the varying configurations of different blanket modules within a fusion reactor. The code developed is applied as a first attempt to evaluate the overall tritium transport behaviors in the WCCB blanket system for CFETR. Preliminary simulation results are reported and discussed. It suggests that the in-homogeneity effect introduced by the geometric and material configurations varying across blanket modules can bring a marked impact on the tritium transport performance, thus is desirable to be taken into account in system-level codes to improve the prediction results.