Search results for "HCPB"

Thermomechanical analyses of the DEMO-HCPB TBM medium scale mock-up to be tested in the HE-FUS3 facility

2000

Thermal tests of ceramic breeder pebble beds for the Helium Cooled (HCPB) DEMO blanket

2002

Automated parametric neutronics analysis of the Helium Cooled Pebble Bed breeder blanket with Be 12 Ti

2017

The Helium Cooled Pebble Bed (HCPB) breeder blanket is being developed as part of the European Fusion Programme. Part of the programme is to investigate blanket designs relevant for future demonstration fusion power plants. This paper presents neutronics analyses of the HCPB with an alternative neutron multiplier, Be12Ti which is incorporated into the design, replacing the current Be multiplier. A parameter study was performed for a range of geometries to identify the optimal heights of the lithium ceramic and neutron multiplier pebble beds. Automated creation of CAD models followed by conversion to constructive solid geometry (CSG) and unstructured mesh (UM) geometry allows the models to b…

Overview of the HCPB Research Activities in EUROfusion

2018

In the framework of the EUROfusion’s Power Plant Physics and Technology, the working package breeding blanket (BB) aims at investigating four different BB concepts for an EU demonstration fusion reactor (DEMO). One of these concepts is the helium-cooled pebble bed (HCPB) BB, which is based on the use of pebble beds of lithiated ternary compounds and Be or beryllides as tritium breeder and multiplier materials, respectively, EUROFER97 as structural steel and He as coolant. This paper aims at giving an overview of the EU HCPB BB Research and Development (R&D) being developed at KIT, in collaboration with Wigner-RCP, BUTE-INT, and CIEMAT. The paper gives an outline of the HCPB BB design evolut…

An enhanced, near-term HCPB design as driver blanket for the EU DEMO

2019

The Helium Cooled Pebble Bed (HCPB) breeding blanket is a candidate as driver blanket for the EU DEMO. The reference design of the HCPB is based on a cooling plate “sandwich” arrangement built in Multi-Module Segments. This architecture significantly improved the tritium breeding performance (TBR = 1.15) and the plant circulating power (≈130 MW) compared to the former ITER-like “beer-box”-like design (TBR<1.10, plant circulating power>200 MW). However, several issues remain with this design, in which (1) the still large power required per He circulator (beyond the state-of-the-art for these components) and (2) the large tritium inventory foreseen in Be have been identified as the most…

Maturation of critical technologies for the DEMO balance of plant systems

2022

The Pre-Concept Design (PCD) of the Balance of Plant (BoP) systems of the EU-DEMO power plant is described in this paper for both breeding blanket (BB) concepts under assessment, namely the Water Cooled Lithium Lead (WCLL) BB and the Helium Cooled Pebble Bed (HCPB) BB. Moreover, the results of a preliminary evaluation of a number of BoP variants are discussed. This paper outlines the steps of the BoP design development, highlighting the project objectives and the strategy for their achievement under the very challenging requirements which include, among others, the intermittent nature of the DEMO plasma heat source. The main achievements during the PCD Phase will be reported together with t…

Preliminary thermal-hydraulic analysis of the EU-DEMO Helium-Cooled Pebble Bed fusion reactor by using the RELAP5-3D system code

2021

Abstract In the frame of the activities promoted and encouraged by the EUROfusion Consortium aimed at developing the EU-DEMO fusion reactor, great emphasis has been placed at a very early stage of the design to incorporate the provisions needed to improve the overall plant safety and reliability performances as well as to analyse possible mitigation actions. In this framework, the research activity has been focused on the representative and safety relevant cooling loop of the Helium Cooled Pebble Bed (HCPB) Breeding Blanket (BB) Primary Heat Transfer System (PHTS), purposely selected by the safety team, in order to assess its thermal-hydraulic behaviour during normal operational conditions …

Validation of Multi-Physics Integrated Procedure for the HCPB Breeding Blanket

2019

The wide range of requirements and constraints involved in the design of nuclear components for fusion reactors makes the development of multi-physics analysis procedures of utmost importance. In the framework of the European DEMO project, the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) is dedicating several efforts to the development of a multi-physics analysis tool allowing the characterization of breeding blanket design points which are consistent from the neutronic, thermal-hydraulic and thermal-mechanical points of view. In particular, a procedure developed at KIT is characterized by the implementation of analysis software only. A preliminary step for the validation of such a procedure ha…

Experimental tests on Li-ceramic breeders for the helium cooled pebble bed (HCPB) blanket design

2003

The Helium Cooled Pebble Bed (HCPB) Test Blanket Module (TBM) to be tested in ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) Reactor foresees the utilization of Lithiate ceramics as Tritium breeder in form of pebble beds. Since 1998, ENEA has launched many experimental activities for the evaluation of the breeder thermomechanics and the interaction between the pebble beds and the prismatic steel containment walls. Main objectives of these activities are the measurement of the pebble bed effective thermal conductivity, the wall heat transfer coefficient, the pressure loads and deformations on the lateral walls and their dependency from the mechanical constraints. The paper presents …