Increase of Tritium Breeding Ratio by Blankets Having Front Breeder Zone in Fusion Reactors

Abstract

A fusion reactor blanket having a large tritium breeding ratio (TBR) is proposed. The blanket has a front breeder zone on the plasma side near its multiplier. A suitable zone thickness is 1 cm when ⁶Li enrichment is 50%. Combined with a multiplier composed of only ∼18-cm-thick beryllium, the TBR is maximized at a value over 20% larger than that of a blanket without a front breeder zone. Since the beryllium multiplier is supposed to include 5% of SUS as structural material in addition to cooling channels, a 12-cm-thick multiplier gives the maximum TBR as >1.4 for the blanket with the front breeder zone.