SOLID BREEDER BLANKET DESIGN AND TRITIUM BREEDING

Thermonuclear D-T power plants will have to be tritium self-sufficient. In addition to recovering the energy carried by the fusion neutrons (about 80% of the fusion energy), the blanket of the reactor will thus have to breed tritium to replace that burnt in the fusion process. This paper is an attempt to cover in a concise way the questions of tritium breeding, and the influence of this issue on the design of, and the material selection for, power reactor blanket relying on the use of solid breeder materials. Tritium breeding requirements - to breed one tritium per fusion neutron - are shown to be quite demanding. To meet them, the blanket must incorporate, in addition to a tritium breeding lithium compound, a neutron multiplier so as to compensate for neutron losses. Presently prefered lithium compounds are Li2O, LiAlO2, Li2ZrO3, Li4SiO4. The neutron multiplier considered in most design concepts is beryllium. Furthermore, the blanket must be designed with a view to minimizing these neutron losses (search for compactness and high coverage ratio of the plasma while minimizing the amount of structures and coolant). The design guidelines are justified and the technological problems which limit their implementation are discussed and illustrated with typical designs of solid breeder blanket.