New approaches to simulating fusion damage in fission reactors

Abstract

Some novel approaches to simulating key fusion reactor damage production parameters are outlined. These involve alloy fabrication with pre-irradiated and/or isotopically modified nickel, chromium and iron. Irradiations of these alloys in the High Flux Isotope Reactor can be used to study the effects of the He/dpa and H/dpa ratio, elemental evolution and primary knock-on atom spectrum. A second approach to producing controlled He/dpa involves in-situ implantation with high energy a particles from the triple fission of 233U; the 233U is bred in-situ from 232Th in HFIR. In principle, this technique can be applied to any alloy system.