Study of a water-cooled convective divertor prototype for the DEMO fusion reactor

The plasma facing components of a fusion power reactor have a large impact on the overall plant design, its performance and availability and on the cost of electricity. The present work concerns a study of feasibility for a water-cooled prototype of the convective divertor component of the DEMO fusion reactor. The study has been carried out in two steps. In the first one thermal-hydraulic and neutronic parametric analyses have been performed to find out the prototype optimized configuration. In the second step thermo-mechanical analyses have been carried out on the obtained configuration to investigate the potential and limits of the proposed prototype, with a particular reference to the maximum heat flux it can undergo without incoming both in critical heat flux and in mechanical stress limits. The results show that the proposed divertor prototype is able to safely withstand peak heat fluxes of 9 MW/m(2).