Tritium transport analysis in HCPB DEMO blanket with the FUS-TPC code

Abstract

In the breeding areas a significant fraction of the tritium produced is extracted out from the Breeding Zone by the He gas purging the breeding ceramic in the helium cooled pebble bed (HCPB) blanket concept or transported in solution by the flowing liquid metal alloy in the helium cooled lead lithium (HCLL) blanket concept and then extracted outside the blanket box. Tritium produced inside the breeder can enter the metal structures and can be lost by permeation to the environment. It should therefore be kept under close control throughout the fusion reactor lifetime.In this study the problem of tritium transport in HCPB DEMO blanket has been studied and analysed by means of the computational code FUS-TPC, which has been originally developed to study the tritium transport in HCLL blanket and it has the main goal to provide the total tritium losses into the environment and the tritium inventories inside several HCPB blanket locations (e.g. purge gas and main coolant loops).