Development of ceramic breeder blankets in Japan

Ceramic breeding blankets are the main options for DEMO reactor designs in JAERI, and large efforts have been made in the area of related materials development, engineering-scaled R&D, as well as design development. A long-term R&D program was launched in 1996 to provide an engineering database and fabrication technologies for the DEMO blanket and its performances by means of in-pile and out-of-pile mock-up tests, aiming at module tests in ITER as a near-term target. A variety of fundamental researches have also been carried out, mainly in universities, to support the above project-oriented R&D, laying emphasis on tritium-release characteristics from the ceramic breeding materials. The present paper overviews the current status of the ceramic breeding DEMO blanket design and related R&D in Japan, and outlines the long-term development program. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.