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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
New X-ray imaging for ITER-supporting tokamaks
As researchers continue to seek ways to better understand the plasma inside fusion machines to fully harness fusion energy, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory is leading a project to provide new X-ray imaging systems to two international tokamak projects: WEST, in southern France, and JT-60SA, in Japan—both of which are designed to support the development of ITER.
V. D’Auria, S. Dulla, P. Ravetto, L. Savoldi, M. Utili, R. Zanino
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 71 | Number 4 | May 2017 | Pages 537-543
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1291252
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The current studies on the development of the EU DEMO breeding blanket include among the options the use of liquid Lithium-Lead (17Li-83Pb) as tritium breeder (and multiplier), with different coolants. As the tritium is steadily produced in the blanket during the reactor operation, suitably efficient strategies for the Tritium Extraction System (TES) from the breeder must be developed, allowing a closed fuel cycle in situ and avoiding tritium accumulation in the machine. The Permeator Against Vacuum (PAV) appears to be one of the most promising solutions to achieve this goal. In this paper, the performance of a PAV system is studied by means of different models describing the transport of tritium in the liquid PbLi and in the metallic membrane separating it from the vacuum. The comparison of the results for different membrane materials and size of the device, for a given target efficiency, allows to optimize the PAV design, also taking into account corrosion issues. The approximations and limitations of the adopted models are also addressed.