Studies of power exhaust and divertor design for a 1.5 GW-level fusion power DEMO

Abstract

Power exhaust to the divertor and the conceptual design have been investigated for a steady-state DEMO in Japan with 1.5 GW-level fusion power and the major radius of 8.5 m, where the plasma parameters were revised appropriate for the impurity seeding scenario. A system code survey for the Ar impurity seeding suggested the volume-averaged density, impurity concentration and exhaust power from the main plasma of = 205–285 MW. The divertor plasma simulation (SONIC) was performed in the divertor leg length of 1.6 m with the fixed exhaust power to the edge of = 250 MW and the total radiation fraction at the edge, SOL and divertor ( = 0.8), as a first step to investigate appropriate design of the divertor size and geometry. At the outer target, partial detachment was produced near the strike-point, and the peak heat load () at the attached region was reduced to ~5 MW m−2 with appropriate fuel and impurity puff rates. At the inner divertor target, full detachment of ion flux was produced and the peak was less than 10 MW m−2 mostly due to the surface-recombination. These results showed a power exhaust scenario and the divertor design concept. An integrated design of the water-cooling heat sink for the long leg divertor was proposed. Cu-ally (CuCrZr) cooling pipe was applicable as the heat sink to handle the high heat flux near the strike-point, where displacements per atom rate was estimated to be 0.5–1.5 per year by neutronics calculation. An arrangement of the coolant rooting for Cu-alloy and Reduced Activation Ferritic Martensitic (RAFM) steel (F82H) pipes in a divertor cassette was investigated, and the heat transport analysis of the W-monoblock and Cu-alloy pipe under the peak of 10 MWm−2 and nuclear heating was performed. The maximum temperatures on the W-surface and Cu-alloy pipe were 1021 and 331 °C. Heat flux of 16 MW m−2 was distributed in the major part of the coolant pipe. These results were acceptable for the plasma facing and structural materials.