Neutronic Evaluation of Fissile Fuel Breeding Blankets for the Fission-Suppressed Tandem-Mirror Hybrid Reactor

摘要

A computational study was performed on the blanket design of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) fission-suppressed Tandem Mirror Hybrid Reactor (TMHR) to qualify the methods and data bases available at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) for use in analyzing the neutronic performance of fissile fuel breeding blankets. The eventual goal of the study was to establish the capability for analysis and optimization of advanced fissile fuel production blanket designs. Discrete ordinates radiation transport calculations were performed in one-dimensional cylindrical geometry to obtain the blanket spatial distribution and energy spectra of the neutron and gamma-ray fluxes resulting from the monoenergetic (14.1 MeV) fusion first wall source. Key macroscopic cross sections of the blanket materials were then folded with the flux spectra to obtain reaction rates critical to evaluating blanket feasibility. Finally, a time-dependent depletion analysis was performed to evaluate the blanket performance during equilibrium cycle conditions. The results of the study are presented both as graphs and tables. (ERA citation 09:034950)