Depletion analysis of a solid-type blanket design for ITER

Abstract

In the blanket design in a D-T fusion power plant. the majority of the fusion energy is obtained from neutron kinetic energy. The tritium for maintaining the self-sustainable D-T fusion reaction is to be procured from the (n,t) reaction in the blanket. For this reason, neutronics analysis in the blanket design is indispensable. Especially for solid-type blanket design, neutronics analysis, including a depletion (transmutation) calculation, is required to calculate the neutron flux and tritium production rate more accurately. In eigenvalue problems for the fission reactor design, the MONTEBURNS code is widely used for depletion calculations. However, the fusion blanket design is a fixed source problem. In addition to this, the current version of the MONTEBURNS code does not include Be(9)(n,t)Li(7) and Li(7)(n,n't)alpha reactions. Thus, in this research, (I) the MONTEBURNS code will be modified to solve the fusion blanket problem, including Be(9)(n,t)Li(7) and Li(7)(n,n't)alpha reactions, and (2) a three-dimensional neutronics depletion analysis for a solid-type blanket for ITER will be performed using the modified MONTEBURNS code. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.