DEVELOPING DEMO DESIGN CRITERIA

DEVELOPING DEMO DESIGN CRITERIA

DEVELOPING DEMO DESIGN CRITERIA 150 150 UKAEA Opendata
UKAEA-CCFE-CP(19)10

DEVELOPING DEMO DESIGN CRITERIA

There is currently a European collaboration that is working towards developing a Demonstration Fusion Reactor (European DEMO). This project is currently defining the high level plant architecture of a DEMO reactor, whilst developing conceptual design solutions for technically challenging systems. One such area of development is the design of Plasma Facing Components (PFCs). The PFC’s are subject to severe load conditions and need to operate in a highly irradiated environment. The unique environment in which these PFC’s operate give rise to many through life material degradation unknowns. Collectively this provides a challenge when assessing the structural integrity (SI) of PFCs.
The traditional design codes, commonly used in the Nuclear industry, have been found to be inappropriate to validate the design of DEMO PFC’s. Through-life material data for many of the materials used in PFC designs do not exist, and dedicated rules are required to cover the DEMO specific failure modes. Additionally, traditional codes are experience based and have been developed for standard equipment. These codes utilise a deterministic approach to structural design; where experience based safety factors are applied to the design in order to ensure a certain likelihood of failure. If these codes are used for DEMO PFCs, it would not be possible to appreciate the level of risk the design has.
To cover the shortfall in traditional design codes, the DEMO project is developing a set of design criteria specifically for DEMO PFCs. This is referred to as the DDC (DEMO design criteria). This paper highlights the challenges faced when assessing the SI of PFCs. And provides an overview of the developments of both a deterministic DDC that only includes non-linear based design rules. And a DDC that uses a probabilistically calibrated Partial Safety Factor (PSF) approach to assess the SI of DEMO PFCs.

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2nd International Conference on Nuclear Power Plants: Structures, Risk and Decommissioning (NUPP), Croydon, UK, 11-12 June 2018