The European DEMO is considered the nearest-term fusion reactor with the aim to generate several hundred MWs of net electricity, operate with a closed tritium fuel-cycle (achieving the tritium self-sufficiency) and qualify technological solutions for a Fusion Power Plant. Two Breeding Blanket (BB) concepts - relying on different cooling and breeding technologies - are considered for the baseline design: the Helium Cooled Pebble Bed BB and the Water Cooled Lithium Lead BB. The selection of the BB type has a strong impact on the whole DEMO plant design and, in particular, on the Balance of Plant (BoP) which is mainly composed by three systems: - a Primary Heat Transfer System (PHTS) to remove the plasma generated thermal power; - a Power Conversion System (PCS) to convert the thermal power in mechanical and finally in electrical energy; - eventually a Energy Storage System (ESS) introduced with the purpose of buffering some energy produced by the pulsed plasma source to allow a continuous production of electricity. The aim of the present work is to investigate a possible concept design of the BoP accommodating two different BB: the Driver Blanket (the basis configuration) which provides the largest part of the power (P) generated in the Tokamak (15/16 of P), whereas the Alternate Blanket (namely an advanced configuration) provides the complement (1/16 P). In this study, the WCLL BB is postulated as Driver BB while the HCPB BB is considered as Alternate Blanket. In the proposed configuration, the HCPB BB tokamak sector is connected to the ESS in order to store thermal energy during pulse to be used in dwell time to keep synchronized the turbine and warm-up the PCS components. A flexible tool made with Matlab® was developed to study this configuration and allows to propose several uses of the heat fluxes.
Balance of Plant conceptual design of EU DEMO integrating different Breeding Blanket concepts
Zaupa M;Dalla Palma M;
2023
Abstract
The European DEMO is considered the nearest-term fusion reactor with the aim to generate several hundred MWs of net electricity, operate with a closed tritium fuel-cycle (achieving the tritium self-sufficiency) and qualify technological solutions for a Fusion Power Plant. Two Breeding Blanket (BB) concepts - relying on different cooling and breeding technologies - are considered for the baseline design: the Helium Cooled Pebble Bed BB and the Water Cooled Lithium Lead BB. The selection of the BB type has a strong impact on the whole DEMO plant design and, in particular, on the Balance of Plant (BoP) which is mainly composed by three systems: - a Primary Heat Transfer System (PHTS) to remove the plasma generated thermal power; - a Power Conversion System (PCS) to convert the thermal power in mechanical and finally in electrical energy; - eventually a Energy Storage System (ESS) introduced with the purpose of buffering some energy produced by the pulsed plasma source to allow a continuous production of electricity. The aim of the present work is to investigate a possible concept design of the BoP accommodating two different BB: the Driver Blanket (the basis configuration) which provides the largest part of the power (P) generated in the Tokamak (15/16 of P), whereas the Alternate Blanket (namely an advanced configuration) provides the complement (1/16 P). In this study, the WCLL BB is postulated as Driver BB while the HCPB BB is considered as Alternate Blanket. In the proposed configuration, the HCPB BB tokamak sector is connected to the ESS in order to store thermal energy during pulse to be used in dwell time to keep synchronized the turbine and warm-up the PCS components. A flexible tool made with Matlab® was developed to study this configuration and allows to propose several uses of the heat fluxes.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
