Study on operation scenario of tritium production for a fusion reactor using a high temperature gas-cooled reactor

Kawamoto, Yasuko*; Nakaya, Hiroyuki*; Matsuura, Hideaki*; Katayama, Kazunari*; Goto, Minoru  ; Nakagawa, Shigeaki  

To start up a fusion reactor, it is necessary to provide a sufficient amount of tritium from an external device. Herein, methods for supplying a fusion reactor with tritium are discussed. Use of a high temperature gas cooled reactor (HTGR) as a tritium production device has been proposed. So far, the analyses have been focused only on the operation in which fuel is periodically exchanged (batch) using the block type HTGR. In the pebble bed type HTGR, it is possible to design an operation that has no time loss for refueling. The pebble bed type HTGR (PBMR) and the block type HTGR (GTHTR300) are assumed as the calculation and comparison targets. Simulation is made using the continuous-energy Monte Carlo transport code MVPBURN. It is shown that the continuous operation using the pebble bed type HTGR has almost the same tritium productivity compared with the batch operation using the block type HGTR. The issues for pebble bed type HTGR as a tritium production device are discussed.