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Advances in Nuclear Fusion Energy and Cross-Cutting Technologies
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Advances in Nuclear Fusion Energy and Cross-Cutting Technologies

A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "A: Sustainable Energy".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2023) | Viewed by 9653

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Iole Palermo

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Fusion Technology Division, Centro Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT), Av. Complutense 40, 28040 Madrid, Spain
Interests: Monte Carlo simulation of radiation transport; neutronic and activation analyses; waste management; radiation protection; shielding; radiation damage; nuclear safety; environmental radioactivity; breeding blankets technologies; dual coolant lithium lead breeding blanket; DEMO (tokamak) and HELIAS (stellarator) design studies; materials developments; liquid plasma facing components

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The Guest Editor is inviting submissions to a Special Issue of Energies on the subject area of “Advances in Nuclear Fusion Energy and Cross-Cutting Technologies”.

This Special Issue will focus on recent progresses for fusion devices, experiments, conceptual designs and related technologies, as well as potential synergies with other applications. Topics of interest for publication include, but are not limited to:

  • Fusion facilities and power plant design;
  • Plasma-facing components;
  • Fuel cycle and breeding blankets;
  • Vessel/in-vessel engineering and remote handling;
  • Balance of plant;
  • Control systems;
  • Magnets;
  • Diagnostics;
  • Materials technology;
  • Safety and waste management;
  • Cross-cutting technologies from fission and solar energy applications.

Dr. Iole Palermo
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • fusion facilities
  • vacuum vessel
  • superconductors
  • radioactive waste
  • liquid metals
  • materials engineering
  • first wall
  • breeding blankets
  • power plant components integration

Published Papers (6 papers)

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Editorial

Jump to: Research

4 pages, 163 KiB  
Editorial
Editorial: Advances in Nuclear Fusion Energy and Cross-Cutting Technologies
by Iole Palermo
Energies 2024, 17(6), 1413; https://doi.org/10.3390/en17061413 - 15 Mar 2024
Viewed by 858
Abstract
The current energy model, which is based largely on the use of fossil fuels and has a direct influence on global warming and climate change, presents serious problems of unsustainability in the long term [...] Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Nuclear Fusion Energy and Cross-Cutting Technologies)

Research

Jump to: Editorial

37 pages, 221788 KiB  
Article
The European DEMO Helium Cooled Pebble Bed Breeding Blanket: Design Status at the Conclusion of the Pre-Concept Design Phase
by Guangming Zhou, Francisco A. Hernández, Pavel Pereslavtsev, Béla Kiss, Anoop Retheesh, Luis Maqueda and Jin Hun Park
Energies 2023, 16(14), 5377; https://doi.org/10.3390/en16145377 - 14 Jul 2023
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1710
Abstract
Significant design efforts were undertaken during the Pre-Concept Design (PCD) phase of the European DEMO program to optimize the helium cooled pebble bed (HCPB) breeding blanket. A gate review was conducted for the entire European DEMO program at the conclusion of the PCD [...] Read more.
Significant design efforts were undertaken during the Pre-Concept Design (PCD) phase of the European DEMO program to optimize the helium cooled pebble bed (HCPB) breeding blanket. A gate review was conducted for the entire European DEMO program at the conclusion of the PCD phase. This article presents a summary of the design evolution and the rationale behind the HCPB breeding blanket concept for the European DEMO. The main performance metrics, including nuclear, thermal hydraulics, thermal mechanical, and tritium permeation behaviors, are reported. These figures demonstrate that the HCPB breeding blanket is a highly effective tritium-breeding and robust driver blanket concept for the European DEMO. In addition, three alternative concepts of interest were explored. Furthermore, this article outlines the upcoming design and R&D activities for the HCPB breeding blanket during the Concept Design phase (2021–2027). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Nuclear Fusion Energy and Cross-Cutting Technologies)
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15 pages, 3137 KiB  
Article
Neutronic Assessments towards a Novel First Wall Design for a Stellarator Fusion Reactor with Dual Coolant Lithium Lead Breeding Blanket
by David Sosa and Iole Palermo
Energies 2023, 16(11), 4430; https://doi.org/10.3390/en16114430 - 30 May 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1809
Abstract
The Stellarator Power Plant Studies Prospective R&D Work Package in the Eurofusion Programme was settled to bring the stellarator engineering to maturity, so that stellarators and particularly the HELIAS (HELical-axis Advanced Stellarator) configuration could be a possible alternative to tokamaks. However, its complex [...] Read more.
The Stellarator Power Plant Studies Prospective R&D Work Package in the Eurofusion Programme was settled to bring the stellarator engineering to maturity, so that stellarators and particularly the HELIAS (HELical-axis Advanced Stellarator) configuration could be a possible alternative to tokamaks. However, its complex geometry makes designing a Breeding Blanket (BB) that fully satisfies the requirements for such a HELIAS configuration, which is a difficult task. Taking advantage of the acquired experience in BB design for DEMO tokamak, CIEMAT is leading the development of a Dual Coolant Lithium Lead (DCLL) BB for a HELIAS configuration. To answer the specific HELIAS challenges, new and advanced solutions have been proposed, such as the use of fully detached First Wall (FW) based on liquid metal Capillary Porous Systems (CPS). The proposed solutions have been studied in a simplified 1D model that can help to estimate the relative variations in Tritium Breeding Ratio (TBR) and displacement per atom (dpa) to verify their effectiveness in simplifying the BB integration and improving the machine availability while keeping the main BB nuclear functions (i.e., tritium breeding, heat extraction and shielding). This preliminary study demonstrates that the use of FW CPS would drastically reduce the radiation damage received by the blanket by 29% in some of the selected configurations along with a small decrease of 4.9% in TBR. This could even be improved to just a 3.8% TBR reduction by using a graphite reflector. Such an impact on the TBR is considered affordable, and the results presented, although preliminary in essence, have shown the existence of margins for further development of the FW CPS concept for HELIAS, as they have been not found, at least to date, to be significant showstoppers for the use of this technological solution. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Nuclear Fusion Energy and Cross-Cutting Technologies)
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19 pages, 3582 KiB  
Article
3D Transient CFD Simulation of an In-Vessel Loss-of-Coolant Accident in the EU DEMO WCLL Breeding Blanket
by Mauro Sprò, Antonio Froio and Andrea Zappatore
Energies 2023, 16(9), 3637; https://doi.org/10.3390/en16093637 - 23 Apr 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1635
Abstract
The in-vessel Loss-of-Coolant Accident (LOCA) is one of the design basis accidents in the design of the EU DEMO tokamak fusion reactor. System-level codes are typically employed to analyse the evolution of these transients. However, being based on a lumped approach, they are [...] Read more.
The in-vessel Loss-of-Coolant Accident (LOCA) is one of the design basis accidents in the design of the EU DEMO tokamak fusion reactor. System-level codes are typically employed to analyse the evolution of these transients. However, being based on a lumped approach, they are unable to quantify localised quantities of interest, such as local pressure peaks on the vacuum vessel walls, to which the failure criteria are linked. To calculate local quantities, the 3D nature of the phenomenon needs to be considered. In this work, a 3D transient model of the in-vessel LOCA from a water-cooled blanket is developed. The model is implemented in the commercial CFD software STAR-CCM+. It simulates the propagation of the water jet in the vessel from the beginning of the accident, thus accounting for the phase change of the water, i.e., from the pressurised liquid phase to the vapour phase inside the vessel, being the latter at a much lower pressure than in the blanket coolant pipes. Due to the large pressure ratio (>1000), shocks are expected; therefore, an Adaptive Mesh Refinement (AMR) algorithm is employed. The physical models (in particular, the multiphase model) are benchmarked to a 2D reference problem before being applied to the 3D EU DEMO-relevant problem. The simulation results show that the pressure peaks in front of the vessel walls are not dangerous as they are below the design limit. The entire evolution of the water jet is followed up to the opening of the burst disks, in order to compare the average pressure evolution with that computed with system-level codes. A comparison with the in-vessel LOCA from a helium-cooled blanket is also carried out, showing that the accident evolution in the water case is less violent than in the helium case. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Nuclear Fusion Energy and Cross-Cutting Technologies)
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29 pages, 20013 KiB  
Article
Thermomechanical and Thermofluid-Dynamic Coupled Analysis of the Top Cap Region of the Water-Cooled Lithium Lead Breeding Blanket for the EU DEMO Fusion Reactor
by Alberto Gioè, Gaetano Bongiovì, Ilenia Catanzaro, Pierluigi Chiovaro, Pietro Alessandro Di Maio, Salvatore Giambrone, Andrea Quartararo, Eugenio Vallone, Pietro Arena and Salvatore Basile
Energies 2023, 16(7), 3249; https://doi.org/10.3390/en16073249 - 5 Apr 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1161
Abstract
In the EU, the Water-Cooled Lithium Lead (WCLL) Breeding Blanket (BB) concept is one of the candidates for the design of the DEMO reactor. From the past campaign of analysis emerged that the thermal-induced stress led to the failure in the verification of [...] Read more.
In the EU, the Water-Cooled Lithium Lead (WCLL) Breeding Blanket (BB) concept is one of the candidates for the design of the DEMO reactor. From the past campaign of analysis emerged that the thermal-induced stress led to the failure in the verification of the RCC-MRx structural criteria. Hence, in this paper the classic conceptual design approach, based on a pure FEM thermal and structural analysis, is compared to a coupled thermofluid-dynamic/structural one. Even though the coupled approach requires tremendous modelling effort and computational burden, it surely allows determining the thermal field with a higher level of detail than the FEM analysis. Therefore, in this work, the focus is put on the impact of a more detailed thermal field on the DEMO WCLL BB global structural performances, focusing on the Top Cap region of its Central Outboard Blanket segment. The obtained results have allowed confirming the soundness of the design solution of the Top Cap region, except for concerns arising on the mass flow rate distribution. Moreover, results have shown that, globally, the pure FEM approach allows for obtaining more conservative results than the coupled one. This is a positive outcome in sight of the follow-up of the DEMO WCLL BB design, as it will be still possible adopting the pure FEM approach to quickly down-select design alternatives, using the most onerous coupled approach to finalise the most promising. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Nuclear Fusion Energy and Cross-Cutting Technologies)
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15 pages, 1725 KiB  
Article
Analysis of Coolant Purification Strategies for Tritium Control in DEMO Water Primary Coolant
by Vincenzo Narcisi, Andrea Quartararo, Ivo Moscato and Alessia Santucci
Energies 2023, 16(2), 617; https://doi.org/10.3390/en16020617 - 4 Jan 2023
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1439
Abstract
A major objective of the European fusion program is the design of the DEMOnstration power plant named DEMO. Up to now, most fusion experiments have been dedicated to a plasma physics investigation while, in DEMO-oriented activities, large attention is devoted also to other [...] Read more.
A major objective of the European fusion program is the design of the DEMOnstration power plant named DEMO. Up to now, most fusion experiments have been dedicated to a plasma physics investigation while, in DEMO-oriented activities, large attention is devoted also to other systems necessary to produce tritium and to convert the fusion power to electricity. The blanket region, responsible for tritium breeding, is characterized by high tritium concentrations, high temperature, and large heat transfer metallic surfaces in which tritium can permeate. Therefore, the problem of tritium permeation and the resulting tritium content in the primary coolant are of great relevance for DEMO. For the pre-conceptual design of the Water-Cooled Lead–Lithium variant, the tritium permeation rate from blanket into coolant was assessed and possible mitigation strategies were suggested. Starting from a review of the CANDU tritium experience, a preliminary assessment of the maximum tritium concentration target in the DEMO primary coolant was performed and different strategies (off-line, on-line, and hybrid) for the water coolant purification system coupled with the DEMO operating scenario were analyzed. The intent is to identify suitable solutions to reduce the tritium concentration inside the water coolant, having in mind the complexity of a water detritiation process. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Nuclear Fusion Energy and Cross-Cutting Technologies)
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