P.D. Edmondson B. Gault M.R. Gilbert
Tungsten is the prime candidate material for the plasma facing divertor system and first wall armor of future nuclear fusion reactors. However, the understanding of the microstructural and chemical evolution of pure tungsten under neutron irradiation is relatively unknown, in part due to a lack of experimental data on this topic. Here, single cr…
Preprint PublishedAndrey Litnovsky Janina Schmitza Felix Klein Karen De Lannoyea Sophie Weckauf Arkadi Kreter Marcin Rasinski Jan W. Coenen Christian Linsmeier Jesus Gonzalez-Julian Martin Bram Ivan Povstugar Thomas Morgan Duc Nguyen-Manh Mark Gilbert Damjan Sobieraj Jan S. Wróbel
During an accident with loss-of-coolant and air ingress in DEMO, the temperature of tungsten first wall cladding may exceed 1000oC and remain for months leading to tungsten oxidation. The radioactive tungsten oxide can be mobilized to the environment at rates of 10 – 150 kg per hour. Smart tungsten-based alloys are under develop…
Preprint PublishedM.R. Gilbert L.W. Packer T. Stainer
Molybdenum is a potential material for future nuclear fusion experiments and power plants. It has good thermo-mechanical properties and can be readily fabricated, making it attractive as an alternative material to tungsten (the current leading candidate) for high neutron flux and high thermal load regions of fusion devices. Unfortunately, exposu…
Preprint PublishedOlga Vilkhivskaya Mark Gilbert
Recent studies of the neutron irradiation conditions predicted in the plasma-exposed first wall of a conceptual design of fusion DEMO power plant implementing the SPECTRA-PKA code have shown the importance of taking into consideration per-channel analysis of the high-energy threshold reactions for an accurate evaluation of their contribution to …
PreprintSteve Bradnam Vytautas Astromskas Zamir Ghani Mark R. Gilbert Malcolm J. Joyce Lee W. Packer
Conventional means of fast neutron detection typically involves moderation and subsequent detection of thermal neutrons via gas filled detectors such as He-3, or alternatively indirect neutron detection via gamma activation systems. Whilst these are often the most conclusive systems for neutron detection, inherent timing and energy information asso…
PreprintGreg Bailey Mark Gilbert Olga Vilkhivskaya
The public perception of fusion power is that it will provide a clean source of abundant nuclear energy. This is not wholly accurate. Currently planned fusion reactors will use the deuterium-tritium (DT) reaction for power generation. This reaction produces 14 MeV neutrons which, as they cannot be magnetically confined, impinge upon the reactor str…
PreprintJack Reid Greg Bailey Edmund Cracknell Mark Gilbert Lee Packer
For either nuclear fusion or generation IV fission reactors to be viable as a commercial energy source the decommissioning and waste disposal solutions must be considered during the design. A multi-step simulation process combining Monte Carlo Neutron Transport simulations with inventory simulations have been performed to estimate the activa…
PreprintMark Gilbert J.-Ch. Sublet
Validation and verification (V&V) benchmark exercises form an important part of the development and release of the FISPACT-II inventory code and its associated input nuclear data libraries. This paper describes the latest V&V based on the fusion decay heat measurements performed at the Japanese FNS facility. New and novel assessment techni…
Preprint PublishedJean-Christophe Sublet Mark R. Gilbert
Nuclear interactions can be the source of atomic displacement, embrittlement and post-short-term cascade annealing defects in irradiated structural materials. Such metrics are derived from, or can be correlated to, nuclear kinematic simulations of primary atomic energy distributions spectra and the quantification of the numbers of secondary defects…
Preprint PublishedM.R. Gilbert T. Eade C. Bachmann U. Fischer N.P. Taylor
Waste-production predictions for the future demonstration fusion power plant (DEMO) are necessary to produce an accurate picture of the likely environmental and economic costs of radioactive waste disposal at end-of-life (EOL). Even during the conceptual stage of DEMO design it is important to perform waste assessment so as to avoid potential surpr…
Preprint Published