Tritium production assessment for the DCLL EUROfusion DEMO

Abstract

The viability of a fusion reactor is preeminently

conditioned by the tritium self-sufficiency. An assessment

of different parameters representing the tritium production,

as the Tritium Breeding Ratio (TBR), the Tritium

Production Rate (TPR) density and their poloidal and

radial variations along the PbLi breeder zones has been

performed for the last DCLL DEMO designs developed in

the frame of the EUROfusion Programme. The final overall

value of 1.104 obtained allows accomplishing the fuel selfsufficiency

requirement. This TBR value includes not only

the contribution of the Breeding Blanket (BB) modules but

also of the Back Supporting Structure (BSS). The BSS

design resulted fundamental to reach the 1.1 criterion.

Lastly, the influence of the integration in the reactor of the

heating and current drive (H&CD) systems that will

penetrate the breeder volume has been evaluated.

Assuming different configurations for them, the TBR loss

has been determined. All the calculations have entailed the

use of the particle transport Monte Carlo code MCNP5.