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Playing the “bad guy” to enhance next-generation safety
Sometimes, cops and robbers is more than just a kid’s game. At the Department of Energy’s national laboratories, researchers are channeling their inner saboteurs to discover vulnerabilities in next-generation nuclear reactors, making sure that they’re as safe as possible before they’re even constructed.
B. J. Merrill, T. D. Marshall, H. Y. Khater, S. Malang, C. P. C. Wong
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 44 | Number 2 | September 2003 | Pages 375-381
Technical Paper | Fusion Energy - Tritium and Safety and Environment | doi.org/10.13182/FST03-A363
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This article summarizes the results of the safety evaluation of the Evaporation of Lithium and Vapor Extraction (EVOLVE) W-alloy first wall (FW) and blanket concept. We have analyzed the EVOLVE design response during a confinement bypass accident. A confinement bypass accident was chosen because, based on previous safety studies, this accident can produce environmental releases by breaching the primary radioactive confinement boundary of EVOLVE, which is the EVOLVE vacuum vessel (VV). As a consequence of a bypass accident, air from a room adjoining the reactor enters the plasma chamber by way of a failed VV port. This air reacts with the high temperature metals inside of the VV to release energy in the case of a lithium spill, or to mobilize radioactive material by oxidation, and then transport this material to the environment by natural convection airflow through the failed VV port. We use the MELCOR code to analyze the response of EVOLVE during this accident. Based on these results, the EVOLVE concept can meet the no-evacuation dose goal set by the DOE Fusion Safety Standard if the EVOLVE confinement building ventilation system is closed within two hours of the onset of this accident.