Speaker
Description
Milan Zmitko1, Italo Ricapito2, Regina Knitter3, Julia Leys3, Salvatore D’Amico4
1 Fusion for Energy (F4E), c/ Josep Pla 2, Barcelona, Spain
2 Fusion for Energy (F4E), Route de Vinon-sur-Verdon, 13115 St Paul lez Durance, France
3 Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Institute for Applied Materials (IAM), Karlsruhe, Germany
4 EUROfusion - Programme Management Unit, Boltzmannstrasse 2, Garching, Germany
One of the reference tritium Breeder Blanket concepts developed in the Europe that will be tested in ITER machine under the form of Test Blanket Module (TBM) is the Helium-Cooled Ceramic Pebble (HCCP) TBM concept in which lithiated ceramic pebbles are used as a tritium breeder and beryllium/beryllides as a neutron multiplier material. This concept, which is being jointly developed in collaboration with ITER Korea under a Partnership agreement, uses EUROFER97 reduced activation ferritic-martensitic (RAFM) steel as a structural material and pressurized helium for heat extraction (8 MPa, 300-500ºC).
The paper gives a brief general description of the HCCP TBM design and the main design requirements, including the requirements for the ceramic breeder material. The HCCP TBM development and qualification plan and ITER testing objectives with identification of the main milestones will be presented, taking into account new ITER baseline and derived from it a TBS Research Plan elaborated considering new testing conditions.
The main part of the paper will be devoted to the presentation of the ceramic breeder material development strategy, qualification plan and overview of the R&D activities. The achieved results on the ceramic breeder (CB) pebbles production (KALOS process), the CB pebbles and pebble beds characterization, and performance under TBM/DEMO relevant conditions, including the performance under neutron irradiation, and thermo-mechanical performance will be briefly overviewed and a new neutron irradiation experiment, foreseen for the functional materials (i.e. for the ceramic breeder and beryllium materials), will be introduced. A special attention will be focused on the on-going R&D activities: (i) development of the CB/Be pebbles filling procedure, and (ii) modelling of the CB pebbles fragmentation and a possible dust formation with simulation studies on its transport and deposition.
