Thermal hydraulic and power cycle analysis of liquid lithium blanket designs

Thermal hydraulic and power cycle analyses were performed for the first-wall and blanket systems of tokamak-type fusion reactors under a typical set of design and operating conditions. The analytical results for lithium-cooled blanket cells show that with stainless steel as construction material and with no divertor present, the maximum allowable neutron wall loading is approximately 2 MW/m2 and is limited by thermal stress criteria. With vanadium alloy as construction material and no divertor present, the maximum allowable neutron wall loading is approximately 8 MW/m2 and is limited by an interplay of constraints imposed on the maximum allowable structural temperature and the minimum allowable coolant inlet temperature. With a divertor these wall loadings can be increased by from 40 to 90 percent. The cost of the vanadium system is found to be competitive with the stainless steel system because of the higher allowable structural temperatures and concomitant higher thermal efficiencies afforded by the vanadium alloys