Conceptual design of the international fusion materials irradiation facility (IFMIF)

The international fusion materials irradiation facility (IFMIF) conceptual design is complete. The two-year effort was carried out as an activity of the IEA executive committee on fusion materials. Specialists from Europe, Japan, the United States and the Russian Federation came together in a series of meetings and workshops to define the concepts for the technical systems and the overall design and cost estimate. The goal of the IFMIF is to provide an irradiation facility for use by fusion material scientists in the search for low activation and damage resistant materials. An accelerator-based neutron source has been established through a number of international studies and workshops as an essential step for near-term materials development and testing. IFMIF would also provide calibration and validation of data from fission reactor and other accelerator-based irradiation testing. The design concept consists of a deuteron accelerator producing particle energies in the range of 30-40 MeV. The deuterons interact with a flowing liquid lithium target (D Li) producing high energy neutrons with a peaked flux around 14 MeV. The resulting high energy neutrons will interact with a test assembly to irradiate test samples of candidate materials up to full lifetime of anticipated use in future fusion energy reactors. (orig.)