PRELIMINARY NEUTRONICS DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF THE BIT HELIUM COOLING CERAMICS BLANKET FOR CFETR

CFETR is a Tokamak fusion engineering test reactor whose concept design is being developed in China. It is a key issue for breeding blanket design to attain tritium self-sufficiency as one of important missions of CFETR. This paper presents a preliminary neutronics design and analysis employing a BIT (breeder inside tube) type helium cooling ceramics blanket (HCCB) design concept as one of CFETR blanket design candidates. Firstly, 1D reactor model was designed using ceramic breeder Li4SiO4 and beryllium in pebble for multiplier. The primary blanket parameters were optimized to yield the higher tritium breeder ratio (TBR), including the thickness of outboard breeder blanket, enrichment of Li-6 and ratio of Li4SiO4 to Be. Secondly, based on the optimized blanket parameters and plasma parameters, a detailed 3D neutronics calculation model of 22.5 degrees reactor sector was developed, including blanket modules, shield, divertor, vacuum vessel and TF coil. The gap between blanket modules had been taken into account. Finally, a set of nuclear analyses were carried out addressing the key neutronics issues by Monte Carlo neutron-photon transport code MCNP version 5 and the FENDL-2.1 data library. The preliminary analysis results showed that the global TBR could achieve 1.21 which satisfied the tritium self-sufficiency demand. Nuclear heat, neutronic flux, and distribution of neutron wall loading (NWL) were also analyzed as source terms of the blanket thermal-hydraulics design and reactor nuclear response.