Progress in tritium retention and release modeling for ceramic breeders

摘要

Tritium behavior in ceramic breeder blankets is a key design issue for this class of blanket because of its impact on safety and fuel self-sufficiency. Over the past 10-15 years, substantial theoretical and experimental efforts have been dedicated world-wide to develop a better understanding of tritium transport in ceramic breeders. Models that are available today seem to cover reasonably well all the key physical transport and trapping mechanisms. They have allowed for reasonable interpretation and reproduction of experimental data and have helped in pointing out deficiencies in material property data base, in providing guidance for future experiments, and in analyzing blanket tritium behavior. This paper highlights the progress in tritium modeling over the last decade. Key tritium transport mechanisms are briefly described along with the more recent and sophisticated models developed to help understand them. Recent experimental data are highlighted and model calibration and validation discussed. Finally, example applications to blanket cases are shown as illustration of progress in the prediction of ceramic breeder blanket tritium inventory.