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Fusion Science and Technology
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Swiss nuclear power and the case for long-term operation
Designed for 40 years but built to last far longer, Switzerland’s nuclear power plants have all entered long-term operation. Yet age alone says little about safety or performance. Through continuous upgrades, strict regulatory oversight, and extensive aging management, the country’s reactors are being prepared for decades of continued operation, in line with international practice.
Roberto Baratti, Anna Maria Polcaro, Pier Francesco Ricci, Antonio Viola, Giancarlo Pierini
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 10 | Number 2 | September 1986 | Pages 266-274
Technical Paper | Tritium System | doi.org/10.13182/FST86-A24978
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A mathematical model has been developed to determine the amount of tritium that permeates the cooling circuit of a tritium breeding blanket containing the liquid eutectic alloy 17Li-83Pb. This model, which has been applied to phase 2A of the International Tokamak Reactor/Next European Torus project, is used to predict the effect of the operating conditions of the blanket, as well as those of a spray tower employed as a tritium recovery unit, and the kinetic parameters for the permeation and desorption processes. The results of this theoretical study indicate that the amount of permeated tritium proved to be not very different for the maximum [10.82 kPa1/2 · m3(mol · T)−1] and minimum [0.7 kPa1/2 · m3(mol · T)−1] values of Sievert's constant (Ks) existing in literature. This amount, moreover, can be reduced to 0.1 to 0.01 g/day of tritium by the presence of small oxide barriers (a permeation reduction factor of α ≅ 100) on the cooling tubes and by the easy operating conditions of the spray tower, which include a droplet diameter of 0.5 mm; a tritium pressure of 0.13 kPa at 673 K; and a residence time of 0.5 s.