The Nuclear Design of a Very Low Activation Fusion Reactor

An investigation was conducted to study the nuclear design aspects of using very low activation materials, such as SiC, MgO, and aluminum for fusion reactor first wall, blanket, and shield applications. In addition to the advantage of very low radioactive inventory, it was found that the very low activation fusion reactor can also offer an adequate tritium breeding ratio and substantial amount of blanket nuclear heating as a conventional material structured reactor does. The most stringent design constraint found in a very low activation fusion reactor is the limited space available in the inboard region of a tokamak concept for shielding to protect the superconducting toroidal field coil. A reference design was developed which mitigates the constraint by adopting a removable tungsten shield design that retains the inboard dimensions and gives the same shield performance as the reference STARFIRE tokamak reactor design.