SUMMARY OF PANEL DISCUSSION ON AUSTENITIC STAINLESS-STEELS AS FUSION-REACTOR STRUCTURAL-MATERIALS

A senior panel was asked to address the question of whether austenitic stainless steels are suitable for use in the first wall and blanket structures of commercial fusion power reactors. The discussion showed that there seems to be no problem in using austenitics for near term fusion designs where the neutron fluence is less than 2-3 MW-y/m**2. Extrapolation to the desired 20 MW-y/m**2 or greater values for commercial operation may be made with the Ti modified 316 SS but only with great risk. Other possible alloys to achieve the commercial goals, such as ferritic steels, were suggested but no in-depth analysis was conducted in this forum.