Shut-Down Dose Rate analysis for ITER Diagnostic Equatorial and Upper Ports

Abstract

The Shut-Down Dose Rate (SDDR) is an important criterion of radiation safety for the personnel access for maintenance operations in ITER ports after the cessation of the D-T 14MeV neutron fusion source. Therefore, the problem of the SDDR calculations attracts the attention of fusion neutronics community because SDDR in such a large and geometrically complicated fusion device as the ITER tokamak is challenging to compute. This challenge has been faced and overcome by applying dedicated methodological approaches explained in this paper. The results of the SDDR analysis allowed us to propose several design solutions for improvement of the radiation shielding of the ITER Generic Diagnostic Equatorial and Upper Port Plugs (EPP and UPP). The SDDR analysis was focused on the interspace area located between the ITER bioshield and port plugs where the personnel access is envisaged at ∼12 days after the ITER shut-down. By this analysis the radiation streaming pathways and dominant sources of decay radiation were revealed and the methods to mitigate the streaming and subsequent activation were found. The optimization of the port shielding was targeted on minimization of the SDDR in the interspace area following the ALARA principle and taking into account the feasibility to implement proposed shielding options with the actual hardware. Among them, wrapping the EPP walls with the B4C tiles improves the EPP shielding performance. While void around the ELM/in-vessel coils and blanket manifolds leads to the performance reduction. The SDDR inside the Generic UPP interspace depends mainly on the environment (blanket, manifolds, and gaps).