Status of the engineering activities carried out on the European DCLL

Abstract

The Dual Coolant Lithium Lead breeding blanket is being investigated as a candidate for the European DEMO. This blanket is based on the use of PbLi as breeder and coolant (“self-cooled breeding zone”) and high-pressure helium for cooling the structures made of EUROFER. During the first part of the project, a conceptual design of the DCLL equatorial outboard module (which supports the highest neutronic and thermal loads) has been finalized, meeting the requirements of tritium self-sufficiency and shielding. It was designed to work under normal, undisturbed operational conditions. The present work shows the current DCLL design produced to comply with the in-box LOCA requirements, including the most relevant results on neutronics, thermal-hydraulic and mechanical calculations, as well as the advances on the Flow Channel Insert development.