Application of the high-temperature gas-cooled reactor to produce tritium for fusion reactors

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

The performance of tritium production for fusion reactor using High-Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor (HTGR) is studied. An influence of Li concentration on tritium production performance using HTGR is estimated. Li compound is loaded in the reactor core using Li rod consisting cylindrical Li compound in cladding tube. A Gas Turbine High-Temperature Reactor of 300 MWe nominal capacity (GTHTR300) with 600 MW thermal output power is assumed as HTGR. An amount of tritium production is estimated by burn-up calculations using the continuous-energy Monte Carlo transport code MVP-BURN. The amount of tritium outflow is estimated from equilibrium solution for the tritium diffusion equation in the cladding tube. Even if 6Li is enriched, the GTHTR300 can produce 500 g of tritium over 180-day operation without increasing the amount of required Li. The amount of tritium outflow is decreased by 20-50%.