Conveners
Tritium Behaviors and DEMO Fuel Cycle
- Charles Kessel (Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory)
Tritium Behaviors and DEMO Fuel Cycle
- Charles Kessel (Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory)
Tritium Behaviors and DEMO Fuel Cycle
- Charles Kessel (Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory)
The fuel cycle of future demonstration and fusion power plants is a complex and highly dynamic system by nature, resulting from the pulsed operation of the tokamak as well as from a number of cyclic operations employed within its processing systems. The fuel cycle nevertheless has to guarantee the availability of fuel in the right quantities and composition to the plasma fueling systems, while...
Fueling, exhaust, breeding, and processing of large amounts of tritium is one of the significant technical challenges facing future deuterium-tritium fusion reactors. The propensity of tritium (as other hydrogen isotopes) to permeate through metals and other structural materials is a significant complicating factor. Successful closure of the D-T fusion fuel cycle requires that tritium losses...
Central requirements for DEMO are production of net electricity and operation with a closed fuel cycle. Thus, the machine will be equipped with a primary and a secondary coolant loop for heat extraction and energy conversion, and with a breeding blanket and a fuel cycle respectively for tritium production and processing. Such configuration inevitably opens a path to tritium migration because...
Mechanisms underlying tritium retention in chamber materials can be roughly divided into two groups: trapping in deposition layers and that in bulk of materials. The contribution of trapping in the bulk to the total tritium retention could be larger in DEMO than that in existing fusion devices due to far longer discharge pulse that allows diffusion of tritium into deeper region of the...
In fusion DEMOs, tritium (T) decontamination scenario before maintenance begins is a key issue. Hence, it is important that T decontamination under vacuum conditions before opening the plasma vacuum vessels. Currently, JA-DEMO team has not yet determined the allowable value of residual T in the vacuum vessel, but it is necessary to indicate a candidate T decontamination technique. Furthermore,...
JET is the largest tokamak in use and currently the only one capable of handling radioactive tritium (T). It operates since 2011 with the ITER-like wall (ILW), which consists of a tungsten (W) divertor and a beryllium (Be) main chamber. Following preparatory campaigns in deuterium (D), hydrogen (H) then T, JET has operated the second Deuterium Tritium Experimental campaign (DTE2, after DTE1 in...
