Spatially and temporally varying tritium generation in solid-type breeder blankets

Abstract

High energy neutrons produced in future fusion reactors will cause significant transmutation reactions in the breeder blanket, including the important tritium breeding reactions. The reaction rate for a given reaction type depends on the neutron spectrum and material properties. The inventory consequences for tritium production of a solid-type breeder blanket are discussed in this paper. A DEMO fusion reactor with 19 homogeneous breeder blanket modules made of Eurofer, helium, Be12Ti and Li4SiO4, with enriched Li6 content. Each blanket module was segmented radially in order to analyse the time-dependent reaction rate as a function of depth. The resolution of radial segmentation was varied and 5 radial divisions were found to be sufficient to accurately model the tritium inventory. Time-dependent tritium production was simulated with the use of the interface code, FATI, which couples radiation transport code MCNP 6 with the inventory code FISPACT-II. The simulated results show how the tritium production varies over the expected lifetime of the blanket. The overall tritium production of the solid-type blanket decreases as the Li6 and Li7 are burnt up. The effect of Li6 burn-up in the breeder zones nearest to the plasma is identified as the main contributing factor to the decreasing tritium production of the whole breeder blanket.