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RIC panel discusses pathway to fusion commercialization
Fusion leaders at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s annual Regulatory Information Conference discussed the path forward for regulating the burgeoning fusion industry. The speakers discussed government and private industry initiatives in the United States and United Kingdom, with a focus on efforts shaping the near-term deployment of commercial fusion machines.
A recurring theme was the need to explain the difference between fission and fusion. Representatives from the Department of Energy and Type One Energy highlighted this as an important distinction for regulators, as it will allow fusion to undergo its own independent maturation process for developing standards and regulations in the same way that fission has. Lea Perlas, Fusion Program director at the Virginia Department of Health, said that confusion between fission and fusion has been a common cause for misplaced concerns among community members surrounding Commonwealth Fusion Systems’ proposed fusion plant site near Richmond, Va.
N.M. Ghoniem, D.H. Berwald
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 4 | Number 2 | September 1983 | Pages 439-444
Materials Engineering | doi.org/10.13182/FST83-A22903
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Lifetime estimates of blanket components are extremely useful during the design process of fusion reactor blankets. In this paper, we present a preliminary analysis for the performance of HT-9 in the blanket modules of a reference Tandem Mirror Hybrid Reactor (TMHR). We utilize the available data base for HT-9 as well as other ferritic alloys to develop approximate design equations for void swelling, the shift in the ductile-to-brittle-transition temperature (DBTT), and thermal creep rupture at high temperature. HT-9 is used in a relatively low temperature design (below 500°C) to give an allowable design stress on the order of 145 MPa for up to 10 operating years. A minimum structure temperature of 365°C is imposed on the design to ensure a good margin of safety against neutron embrittlement. As an added design feature, the moderate DBTT shifts are almost entirely eliminated by a 450°C anneal for 50–60 hours, once every year. The lifetime of the blanket is estimated to exceed 10 years, and is based on the maximum limit for total elastic plus inelastic strains.