The authors have pointed out that initial tritium needed for starting operation of fusion reactor can be made by DD and low T discharges with self sufficient blankets. Practical commissioning plan of Japanese DEMO was recently planned as a part of DEMO design activity. The early campaigns will require longer than a year of repeated low power pulses for operational purposes as the “power...
The first of nine ITER Torus and Cryostat Cryopumps has been successfully manufactured and delivered to ITER in summer 2017. This Pre- Production Cryopump is the first of the ITER cryopumps and may be used for the first pump down of the vacuum vessel or the cryostat.
The pump has a 1.8 m diameter and a length of about 3 m and contains cryogenic pressure equipment with a charcoal coated...
Within the Early Neutron Source (ENS) project of EUROfusion the design of the accelerator based irradiation facility IFMIF-DONES (International Fusion Material Irradiation Facility- DEMO Oriented NEutron Source) is under development. The main mission of IFMIF- DONES is to provide the irradiation data needed for the construction of DEMO, a fusion power demonstration reactor developed in the...
Tritium needed as a fuel for fusion reactors is produced via neutron capture by lithium-6 (6Li). However, natural Li contains only about 7.8% 6Li, and enrichment of 6Li up to 90% is required for adequate tritium breeding in fusion reactors. In Japan, lithium isotope enrichment methods have been developed to avoid the environmental hazards of using mercury. However, the isotope separation...
The realization of a DEMOnstration Fusion Power Reactor (DEMO) to follow ITER, with the capability of generating several hundred MW of net electricity and operating with a closed fuel-cycle by 2050, is viewed by Europe as the remaining crucial step towards the exploitation of fusion power. The EUROfusion Consortium, in the frame of the European Horizon 2020 Program, is assessing four different...
Unique gas retention and transport characteristics of group V elements (V, Nb, Ta) have long attracted a significant interest, in particular among the nuclear fusion community. The nominally high hydrogen isotope permeability and diffusion at the expected operational temperatures, together with the negative activation energy for the solubility present these materials as a promising choice for...
Several breeding blanket concepts for the DEMO reactor employ the eutectic Pb–16Li as breeder material, namely Helium Cooled Lithium Lead (HCLL), Water Cooled Lithium Lead (WCLL) and Dual Coolant Lithium Lead (DCLL). These three concepts share, with different incidences, three major technological challenges: tritium containment, steel corrosion and magnetohydrodynamic drag. Here, we describe...