A new water-cooled lead blanket concept

Lead has been widely investigated as a candidate blanket material in the form of lithium-lead eutectic for D-T fueled fusion reactors. A new lead blanket concept is conceived that could be cooled by pressurized water and which mitigates the potential polonium and chemical activity concerns. One of the new ideas in the new lead blanket concept is the minimization of the lithium content in the lithium-lead material in order to further reduce the chemical activity with water. The minimum lithium concentration in this new Li-Pb alloy for achieving a tritium breeding ratio of 1.2 is 5 at.%. The other new idea is to mitigate the polonium leakage concern by using sealed tubes containing the recommended Li-Pb material. The bred tritium will permeate through the tube walls into the water coolant and be extracted. The tritium inventory in the blanket will be primarily that in the water coolant, amounting to about 320 g. 14 refs., 3 figs., 4 tabs