Japanese contribution to the DEMO-R&D program under the Broader Approach activities

Nishitani, Takeo; Yamanishi, Toshihiko; Tanigawa, Hiroyasu; Nozawa, Takashi; Nakamichi, Masaru; Hoshino, Tsuyoshi; Koyama, Akira*; Kimura, Akihiko*; Hinoki, Tatsuya*; Shikama, Tatsuo*

Fusion Engineering and Design, 86(12), p.2924 - 2927, 2011/12

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fusengdes.2011.07.004

Several technical R&D activities related to the blanket materials are newly launched as a part of the Broader Approach (BA) activities, which was initiated by the EU and Japan. According to the common interests of these parties for DEMO, R&Ds on reduced activation ferritic/martensitic (RAFM) steels as structural material, SiCf/SiC composites as a flow channel insert material and/or alternative structural material, advanced tritium breeders and neutron multipliers, and tritium technology are carried out through the BA DEMO R&D program, in order to establish the technical bases on the blanket materials and the tritium technology required for DEMO design. This paper describes overall schedule of those R&D activities and recent progress in Japan carried out by JAEA as the domestic implementing agency on BA, collaborating with Japanese universities and other research institutes.

Long-term properties of reduced activation ferritic/martensitic steels for fusion reactor blanket system

Shiba, Kiyoyuki; Tanigawa, Hiroyasu; Hirose, Takanori; Sakasegawa, Hideo; Jitsukawa, Shiro

Fusion Engineering and Design, 86(12), p.2895 - 2899, 2011/12

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fusengdes.2011.06.005

Aging properties of reduced activation ferritic/martensitic steel F82H was researched at temperature ranging from 400C to 650C up to 100,000 hr. Microstructure, tensile, and Charpy properties were carried out. Laves was found at temperatures between 550 and 650C and MC carbides were found at the temperatures between 500 and 600C over 10,000 hr. These precipitates caused degradation in toughness, especially at temperatures ranging from 550C to 650C. Tensile properties do not have serious aging effect, except for 650C, which caused large softening even after 10.000 hr. Increase of precipitates also causes some degradation in ductility, but it is not critical. Large increase in DBTT caused by the large Laves phase precipitation at grain boundary was observed in the 650C aging. Laves precipitates at grain boundary also degrades the USE of the aged materials. These aging test results provide F82H can be used up to 30,000 hr at 550C.

Fabrication and tests of EF conductors for JT-60SA

Kizu, Kaname; Kashiwa, Yoshitoshi; Murakami, Haruyuki; Obana, Tetsuhiro*; Takahata, Kazuya*; Tsuchiya, Katsuhiko; Yoshida, Kiyoshi; Hamaguchi, Shinji*; Matsui, Kunihiro; Nakamura, Kazuya*; et al.

Fusion Engineering and Design, 86(6-8), p.1432 - 1435, 2011/10

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fusengdes.2011.01.028

In JT-60SA, central solenoid (CS) and plasma equilibrium field (EF) coils are procured by Japan. EF coil conductors are NbTi cable-in-conduit (CIC) conductor. Delivered superconducting cables and jackets are fabricated into CIC conductors at the jacketing facility with the length of 680 m constructed in the Naka site of JAEA. The production of superconductors with 444 m in length for actual EF coils was started from March 2010. The measurements of superconducting performance like current sharing temperature (Tcs) were conducted prior to the mass production. The measured Tcs was agreed with the expectation values from strand values indicating that no degradation was happened by production process.

Development of high power long-pulse RF transmitter for ICRF heating in fusion researches and cyclotron accelerator

Kwak, J. G.*; Wang, S. J.*; Bae, Y. D.*; Kim, S. H.*; Hwang, C. K.*; Moriyama, Shinichi

Fusion Engineering and Design, 86(6-8), p.938 - 941, 2011/10

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fusengdes.2010.10.005

KAERI have been developing the transmitters for ICRF heating for KSTAR and the cyclotron accelerator since 1996. The toroidal magnetic field of KSTAR is nominally 3 T so that 25-60 MHz transmitter is required to cover ICRF heating scenarios of the KSTAR. The first transmitter is operating up to 60 MHz and it succeeded in achieving 2 MW for 300 s in 2008. Up to 300 kW RF power was successfully injected to KSTAR plasmas. The second one is 70 kW/CW transmitter used for the cyclotron accelerator and their frequency range is from 25 to 50 MHz. Its engineering design was finished. The third one is 1 MW/VHF transmitter which was loaned from JAEA. As the operating ICRF frequency of KSTAR is lower, its cavity structure will be modified from 110 MHz to 60 MHz. The test results of 60 MHz and lessons from the high power test of 2 MW transmitter will be introduced and the circuit analysis and engineering design work for the second and third amplifiers will be shown.

Precipitation behavior in F82H during heat treatments of blanket fabrication

Sakasegawa, Hideo; Tanigawa, Hiroyasu; Kano, Sho; Enomoto, Masato*

Fusion Engineering and Design, 86(9-11), p.2541 - 2544, 2011/10

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fusengdes.2011.03.087

Reduced Activation Ferritic/Martensitic steels (RAFMs) are leading candidates for the structural material of DEMO blanket module. Through the Broader Approach (BA) activity in Japan, the fabrication techniques for the DEMO blanket module has been studied and developed. In the techniques, the development of joining technique is especially important for fabricating the complicated structure of blanket module. In particular, Hot Isostatic Pressing (HIP) has been applied to joining cooling channels with a rectangular cross section. During and after HIP, the structural material are exposed to various heat treatments such as holding at the HIP temperature, following furnace cooling, 2nd normalizing to refine austenite grains, and 2nd tempering. Microstructural evolutions during these various heat treatments should be focused, because they determine the performance of the blanket module. Especially, fine precipitates such as tantalum and vanadium carbides precipitated at high temperatures greatly affect the creep property, the material toughness, and irradiation resistances of RAF as the structural material. In this work, we have studied the stability of fine precipitates in the F82H-BA07 heat (8Cr-2W-V, Ta) during simulated heat treatments of the blanket fabrication.

Maintenance concept for the SlimCS DEMO reactor

Tobita, Kenji; Uto, Hiroyasu; Kakudate, Satoshi; Takase, Haruhiko; Asakura, Nobuyuki; Someya, Yoji; Liu, C.

Fusion Engineering and Design, 86(9-11), p.2730 - 2734, 2011/10

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fusengdes.2011.03.022

For high availability of DEMO operation, sector horizontal transport hot cell maintenance scheme was studied. Transport of sector with 730 tons is carried out using a wheeled platform. The driving force of pulling the sector into a cask is ball screws. The fulcrum of the ball screws is the cryostat wall so that a large pulling force is expected with no-counter balance. The cask containing the sector is delivered by air casters from the cryostat to the hot cell. For the maintenance scheme, new concepts such as transfer of the tilting forces of toroidal coils using ropes and shafts and supports for the tilting force using reinforced concrete floor or cryostat wall were proposed. Based on the maintenance concept, the period required for replacement of all sectors is estimated to be 35.5-67.5 days, satisfying the design target (shorter than 3 months).

Neutronic analysis of the ITER poloidal polarimeter

Ishikawa, Masao; Kawano, Yasunori; Imazawa, Ryota; Sato, Satoshi; Vayakis, G.*; Bertalot, L.*; Yatsuka, Eiichi; Hatae, Takaki; Kondoh, Takashi; Kusama, Yoshinori

Fusion Engineering and Design, 86(6-8), p.1286 - 1289, 2011/10

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fusengdes.2011.01.046

The nuclear heating rates of the optical mirrors of the poloidal polarimeter installed in the equatorial port plug of ITER are calculated. Since the system cannot have a sufficiently labyrinthine structure and the second mirrors are located nearly as close to the plasma as the first mirrors due to limited space, the nuclear heating rate of the second mirrors is as high as that of the first mirrors. However, it is possible to reduce the nuclear heating rates of the mirrors if the blanket shield module provides a sufficient degree of neutron shielding.

Design study of an AC power supply system in JT-60SA

Shimada, Katsuhiro; Baulaigue, O.*; Cara, P.*; Coletti, A.*; Coletti, R.*; Matsukawa, Makoto; Terakado, Tsunehisa; Yamauchi, Kunihito

Fusion Engineering and Design, 86(6-8), p.1427 - 1431, 2011/10

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fusengdes.2011.02.097

First qualification of ITER toroidal field coil conductor jacketing

Hamada, Kazuya; Takahashi, Yoshikazu; Isono, Takaaki; Nunoya, Yoshihiko; Matsui, Kunihiro; Kawano, Katsumi; Oshikiri, Masayuki; Tsutsumi, Fumiaki; Koizumi, Norikiyo; Nakajima, Hideo; et al.

Fusion Engineering and Design, 86(6-8), p.1506 - 1510, 2011/10

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fusengdes.2010.12.054

Japan Atomic Energy Agency has a responsibility for procurement of the ITER toroidal field coil conductors as Japanese Domestic Agency (JADA) of the ITER project. The TF conductor is a circular shaped cable-in-conduit conductor, which is composed of cable and stainless steel conduit (jacket). The outer diameter and wall thickness of jacket are 43.7mm and 2mm, respectively. The cable consists of 900 NbSn superconducting strands and 522 Cu strands. The length of TF conductor is 780m in maximum. Preparation of conductor fabrication was completed in December 2009. And then, to demonstrate a conductor manufacturing procedure, JADA fabricated 780m-long Cu dummy conductor as a process qualification. Finally, the 780m-long Cu dummy conductor has been successfully completed, ahead of other domestic agencies that are in charge of TF conductor procurement. Since all of manufacturing processes have been qualified, JADA started to fabricate superconducting conductors for TF coils.

Wave period of free-surface waves on high-speed liquid lithium jet for IFMIF target

Kanemura, Takuji; Sugiura, Hirokazu*; Yamaoka, Nobuo*; Suzuki, Sachiko*; Kondo, Hiroo; Ida, Mizuho; Matsushita, Izuru*; Horiike, Hiroshi*

Fusion Engineering and Design, 86(9-11), p.2462 - 2465, 2011/10

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fusengdes.2011.01.030

Wave period of free-surface waves on a high-speed liquid lithium (Li) jet is very important wave characteristics to investigate for validation of a Li target of the International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility (IFMIF). In this paper, we report characteristics of wave period measured by a contact-type liquid level sensor. The experiments were conducted at a Li loop in Osaka University. In this loop, a plane Li jet simulating the IFMIF Li target can be controlled at the velocities of up to 15 m/s. Probability density distribution of the measured wave periods was nearly equal to the log-normal distribution. The fact that the wave period distribution is nearly equal to the log-normal distribution has been already identified in the ocean waves which are known for its random property. From present and previous our experimental results, it was concluded that random wave property developed for the ocean waves can apply to the free-surface waves on the Li jet.