Preliminary structural design and thermo-mechanical analysis of helium cooled solid breeder blanket for Chinese Fusion Engineering Test Reactor

With the aim to bridge the R&D gap between ITER and fusion power plant, the Chinese Fusion Engineering Test Reactor (CFETR) was proposed to be built in China. The mission of CFETR is to address the essential R&D issues for achieving practical fusion energy. Its blanket is required to be tritium self-sufficient. In this paper, a helium cooled solid breeder blanket adopting multilayer U-shaped pebble beds was designed and analyzed. Thermo-mechanical analysis of the first wall and side wall combined with breeder unit was carried out for normal operating steady state conditions. The results showed that the maximum temperatures of the structural material, neutron multiplier and tritium breeder pebble beds are 523 degrees C, 558 degrees C and 787 degrees C, respectively, which are below the corresponding limits of 550 degrees C, 650 degrees C and 920 degrees C. The maximum equivalent stress of the structure is under the allowable value with a margin about 14.5%. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.